2 questions from the above comments what happens in italy goes belly up, i’m thinking agusta westland owned by finnimeca (excuse spelling) and also will it effect F-35 as italy are making a fair bit of it.
If we did this europe defence sharing, could’ve looked a bit stupid if we had left A2G to anyone but france in the recent dust up in libya!!

Italy is bascially unsaveable if she goes down. The best the IMF and the EU fund could do would be to manage the fallout and perhaps help out some of the exposed banks. Spain, Ireland and Portugal might go soon after as people lose confidence.

The Euro could be done for to be honest. Last night, while ‘Sconi was arsing about the markets started slowly withdrawing on the Euro. Expect that slow movement to go f**king mental if the Italians are forced into a prolonged election campaign (there is a confidence vote in the government scheduled before the next vote on austerity measures!).

And if you have any gold, hold onto it for a minute. Last night the price briefly nudged over $1,800 per ounce. If Italy goes, it’s game on! Shame some one eyed Scottish twat sold most of our gold reserves a long time ago. He got $3.5 billion for it then. That same amount of gold would be worth a bit under $23 billion on Today’s market. (Our remaining reserve is probably worth about $15 billion).

Or a small business loan guarantee scheme that would kick the economy into shape sharpish. One day we’ll get a Government that understands that Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) account for over half of all employment, and are far more flexible and useful in building a strong and diverse economy than large businesses.

“One day we’ll get a Government that understands that Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) account for over half of all employment, and are far more flexible and useful in building a strong and diverse economy than large businesses.”

Well the plan is “Project Merlin” presumably designed to magic money out of the banks and into the economy. But it’s not enough.

Really the Government could do with selling off its shares in various banks and using the money, plus some it stumps up itself (axe that f**king Big society bank for a start), to create a fund of its own, instead of relying on the banks to do the right thing.

Italy going pop would probably be bad for the Yeovil end of AW and bad/good for the Italian end. Bad because the Italian government would slash defence spending (and maybe have the odd Cavour for sale?), but good because if they left the euro, the lira would crash and it would become really cheap to make stuff in Italy.

There’s other ramifications – even the Germans are cutting back on things like NH-90s to help pay for all the kebabs they’ve been ordering lately.

It’s easy to overstate the Italian problem, it’s not as bad as Greece – if they could just sort out their tax collection and black economy, they’d be fine. At the moment their citizens have too much money (>$8 trillion in savings or something like that) and the government debt is about 100% of GDP – normally 80-90% is about where you start losing AAA ratings and such like. If they could just relieve the Mafia/Camorra of a trillion or so, they’d be cushty. The US is about 100% of GDP, and UK 70% (thanks to North Sea oil rather than any great prudence by our politicians) – but we also have a lot more private debt.

Finally – has anyone asked Alex Salmond how that “Independence in Europe” thing is going? Apparently Scotland would be on the hook for €8bn of Greek/Italy bailouts if they were independent and part of the euro.

army captain writes and distributes memo about shedloads of soldiers, including wounded to be made redundant.
2 things about this capt;
1)he will be orderly officer between 1-31st dec
2)he will be claiming jobseekers 1st jan onwards!

Nobody will be kicking recovering wounded soldiers out of the Army as part of redundancy. Now there are some wounded soldiers who have essentially recovered who might get made redundant along with everyone else.

I’m sorry but that’s the way it has to be, the Army is not social jobs programme and they’ll get a far better package of money and re-settlement than they’d ever have gotten in civilian life to start again.

The MoD well recognises that it has a duty of care toward the recovering wounded and they stay on strength, fully paid up until they are rehabilitated. This can take 3-5 years.

I swear there are a group of senior advisors in the US government and military just pissing their pants right now at how much extra spending (or loss reductions) they can get Congress to agree to based on “the Chinese threat”.

@El Sid: Salmond won’t be worried. There’s was discussion on BBC Newsweek today. The programme also has two vaguely defence-related pieces in the second half.

There’s a piece on the future of space programmes. Chris.B won’t be surprised to learn that the punditry expected the US to be more than a little concerned if China started a Moon landing programme. And they will. So, not just the Pentagon who’ll be looking for more pennies in the face of the Yellow Peril then, but NASA too.

I sometimes think I must have slept through the Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The cover-up was very effective too because I can’t find any evidence that it happened.

There’s also a stating-the-bleeding-obvious discussion of the Iranian nuclear programme. An attack on Iran, especially an Israeli attack, would strengthen Ahmedinejad’s weak internal position. Well I never! Our expert guessed around 3-5 years from a hypothetical decision in Tehran to proceed with a bomb programme to actually producing a weaponisable device. A device that would only be useful for test and PR purposes would be doable in a year supposedly.

I understand why the Army wants to cut those that are injured and will not make it back into active service.
I’m ok with letting them go, providing the welfare system has the correct benefit for them, ie create a veteran benefit and not just stick them on any new crappy benefit, then you’ve got to do something with the pensions. Also I’d like to see opportunities for them in the army still, not everyone has to be fighting fit, its probably a horrible term, but become a paper pusher (like accounts, something that is useful outside of the army)

Sadly with government joined up thinking like ours does not exist.

So the outrage in people is probably not because they’re injured and getting kicked out, its the lack of commitment from the government after they are made redundant.

The benefit system is a complete mess at the moment, it amazes me that GP, Consultants and specialists are ignored in benefit claims, yet the government wants these very people(whom they ignore) to run the bloody nhs!!!

Does anyone know if the current or future benefit systems has anything for veterans?

btw I don’t like the use of the word veteran, now days its portrayed as quite glorified and heroic. But more along the lines of “medically retired because all I had was a shitty land rover”

There are jobs in the Army for them, each case I believe is judged on its merits. Obviously there is more scope for keeping an old sweat with one foot missing in as an RQ or instructor than there is your 19 year old Tom.

If you’re injured and discharged you get Armed Force Compensation Scheme lump sum payments and a guaranteed income payment. Plus they can obviously access over civilian benefits. If they have also been sensible they’ll have a PAX pay out too. I know a double amputee who is now a millionaire – for what its worth.

The civilian benefit system has nothing in particular for “veterans”. War Pensions can be completely disregarded for Housing Benefit but that is down to each council and there are, believe it or not, some tight bastards who take it all into account.

paul r
not being funny, but people join infantry because they’re too thick to do anything else.
I cant run 20 miles in full kit in 6 hours, but i can maintain 99.94% accuracy for 14 hours for 4 days (plus getting home an back to work).
Not really time for airbumming……

Rommel considered ‘none coms’ to be second class, monty kicked his arse good and proper

Some of the brightest people in the Army are infantry and it is of course entirely appropriate that different jobs needs different qualities, academic or otherwise. Is driving a truck particularly intellectually demanding, or building a bridge, or flying an Apache, different strokes need different folks.

Indeed it is and created by degree holding technicians as well! Infantry thick? it’s horses for courses not everyone in the inf is bright but then again i’ve known tradesmen who can fix stuff all day long, but need to be told to wash, go to the toilet etc etc.
What does tend to happen is those not so accademic are encouraged to find out what they can do and on leaving the mob have the confidence to crack on and do well.
I’m with phil on the wounded in the old days (even the 80’s) there were always jobs for the downgraded now it’s a leaner machine, no mess managers,stewards or clothing storeman jobs. So as long as the aftercare is spot on then it’s time to go, sounds harsh i know but if your new slimmed down inf had 20% non deployable is it an effective unit?

Does make you think though by the time you have outsourced a service and paid the ex-servicemen a whole host of benefits whether it would be cheaper keeping him/her in uniform. Couldn’t do it for everyone but…….

Seems like Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan are committed to a new “Eurasian Union” starting in 2015. Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Mongolia could be on the list to eventually join, with others following. Interesting development.

The plan is to make it a purely economic union. It’s just a way for Moscow to try and help out its economy a little, while also pulling those states away from the influence of outside players.

There’s no military aspect to this. It’s nothing really to worry about either, it’s largely looking just like a defensive measure against the spread of the EU into the eastern steppes and China’s diplomatic efforts on its western border.

Those countries in the middle must be loving it. They’ve got a bidding war between Russia and China going on, and now the Americans are going to be looking for logistical staging posts and through routes as well. It’s Christmas come a little early.

“French, Germans Should Team on UAV: German Minister”
If this happens then I expect European UAV project will get very messy very quick. Problem with such multi national projects is that everyone want something and always wants more design and production share.

I hope we tell the Germans to get stuffed, this is an opportunity for the UK to push for a project with France alone and get ahead of the Germans.

The bit about building closer ties with Northern and Eastern europe I can understand, for the UK as a whole.

But 9% of defence? Laughed off. That defence was built, surprisingly enough, for the protection of the United Kingdom. If the Scots wish to leave that protection then they’re more than welcome, but the protection stays with the organisation that bought it.

If Salmond can swing independence (and its increasingly unlikely as the recession drags on) then I expect the English Government to royally screw the SNP – if we gave them 9% the value rather than 9% of the inventory of the armed forces I wonder what that would look like in terms of numbers, I bet it would result in very little kit (as F-35, the Carriers and Trident replacement would distort the equipment budget which might be the real reason why Trident transferred to the core equipment budget) and certainly not the kit the SNP wants which is 24 Typhoons and 2 Type 23’s/Type 26’s and enough equipment to stand up the Royal Regiment of Scotland as multi-role force, along with a England committing to paying for the redevelopment of all the real estate to the standards Salmond wants.

The only logical bit of Salmond’s plans if for P-3’s a I hope our clueless bunch of morons running the country can swallow their pride and get us some suitably modernised by Airbus in the next few years.

They’ll get 9% of the equipment, its fairly standard, and 9% of the staff if they want them, or can convince them to join up.

Its unlikely they will even want 9% of the kit.
Lets face it, they arent going to want 1 Astute are they? They might however, want T1 typhoons.
Would they even want Challies?

“I think he’s also forgetting that the Defence Industrial Strategy would require the UK to remove all shipbuilding from Scotland and return it to sovereign territory.”
The idea probably just hasnt occured to him that Scottish Independance would have a down side.
There are dozens of rusting harbour towns that would love to host the nuclear submarines or the new ship yards.
Barrow would be a good place to invest if Scottish independance looked likely.

There’s also a Scottish armoured Regiment (SCOTS DG) and unless it changed in the last 8 years, at least a couple of Regiments of Scottish-affiliated Gunners and Sappers. Of course, not all of the soldiers in those Regiments are Scottish, and even among the Scots, not all may wish to transfer across. Rewinding to my time in green, I wouldn’t have done. I joined the Army to go to places, to serve on operations in a first class world Army, not to be part of some militia.

What’s the betting that 9% of hardware is going to consist of hundreds of Snatch Landrovers, CVR(T) and Bulldog, with a few Bedford 4 tonners thrown in for goodwill?

James
Indeed, its quite likely scotland would expect a payout instead of all of that 9%.

The population thing is interesting, Irish Members of the armed forces were given the same choice on the creation of the free state, no idea how many chose to join the new and how many stayed, but nowadays, I’d guess very few would want to be part of a scottish armed forces.

I am doing this comparison based on the Irish defence forces (even though the article reference was specifically to Nordic neighbours):
RE “joined the Army to go to places, to serve on operations in a first class world Army, not to be part of some militia”
– 40.000 members of the Irish forces have served with UN and the like operations (I am sure there is some double counting there, but just divide that with the overall strength); so they do get to travel

RE “What’s the betting that 9% of hardware is going to consist of hundreds of Snatch Landrovers, CVR(T) and Bulldog, with a few Bedford 4 tonners thrown in for goodwill?”
– quite a good mix if you think of a) the Scottish landscape, or b) peacekeeping (not making)
– and of course the balances would be split based on book values (not count) so they would be getting loadsa…

BTW: I (would) welcome a new member to the Nordic family, but I object to
1. hollowing out the UK defence, and
2. not accounting for all that money sent north of the border as a budget subsidy over so many years (mainly from folks in the SE)

re UN and Ireland, many individual missions, the remainder at Company level as peace keepers. It’s hardly grown up war fighting across the full spectrum of conflict, which is the attraction to many of joining the British Army (or RAF, or RN).

Isn’t it more likely, anyway, that if Scotland devolution goes ahead, Defence and Foreign Policy remain a common matter within the UK, with Scotland having an independence-lite more related to internal matters than to much else…? Until days ago, for the little i read, it looked like the most likely option.

But i have to admit that i’ve not followed the situation much, so far.

ACC
Usual comment, however, short of a “martial races” theory, its likely simply that the English and Welsh are more likely to leave the army.
The Scots in the SAS would of course, be free to choose which force they want to join, the Scots Militia, or remain in the SAS? Dont see many of them opting the homeland….
And of course, the England could still recruit from Scotland, we recruit from everywhere else….

Gabriele
The SNP strategy has always been simply to maximise the subsidy it gets from England, rather than true independance.
However, the Tories have a majority in the UK *if* Scotland leaves.
Cameron is an avowed unionist, but his position is far from secure, and those who could wield the knife on him, and those who may sit on his throne, are far more practical.

Salmond could find a himself facing a vote in England on throwing Scotland out of the union.

@ChrisB: If you want to split the debts you surely need to split the assets too. There’s a huge amount of debt and not so many assets. But as Tubby says, what would be worth taking? The only obvious biggish-ticket items would be helicopters and C-130Js and possibly a couple of half-built Type 26s, always assuming that they’ve progressed beyond the PowerPoint phase. Type 23s and Typhoons both have the same basic flaw, although for different reasons. They are expensive to feed and care for.

@Dom: Barrow would be a poor base for submarines, a long way from open ocean and the amount of dredging needed to get Trident boats in and out was said to be huge. Devonport is the most obvious alternative to Faslane. The problem, as it always has been, is to find a Coulport-substitute. Something floaty in Carrick Roads or Falmouth Bay perhaps?

In terms of choice as to where to serve, what the SNP may think would be less important than what Westminster decided. The Irish Free State example/precedent is a poor one for all sorts of reasons. But as far as it goes, what happened then was that regiments recruited in the Free State were disbanded and those recruited at least partly in Northern Ireland were kept on the books. However, in the event of split the UK defence budget would be facing a cut in cash terms of 10% in round numbers. It would be no surprise at all if everything that could be claimed to be “Scottish” were to be disbanded and personnel numbers cut yet again. There might not be a large element of choice for everyone since the alternative to the Scottish forces might be no job at all.

They should take their share of surplus Challengers, worn out Tornados and the like, whether they want them or not. Certainly shouldn’t be allowed to cherry-pick the newest and best kit.

The SNP still arrogantly view manpower as a product to take, rather than people to recruit. Even if every Scot wanted to transfer to a Scottish force, I doubt they’d get a good balance of trades and skills. Probably was easier for the Irish than it would be with today’s much more hi-tech and complex forces.

RE “Certainly shouldn’t be allowed to cherry-pick the newest and best kit”…and not cash, which is in short supply

Anyway, we are coming up with good slogans for the referendum:”in the event of split the UK defence budget would be facing a cut in cash terms of 10% in round numbers. It would be no surprise at all if everything that could be claimed to be “Scottish” were to be disbanded and personnel numbers cut yet again.”
– the closes existing parallel would probably be Catalonia in Spain. They have, through decades long negotiation, got their share of local tax take to 90 %
– with the same formula (and no more subsidy!), 9 % would go towards common defence (non-nuclear Scotland might still be an issue to be worked on) and the 1% would correspond to foreign aid goal (mind you, that would mean paying for two sets of embassies and consular representation) as defence and foreign policy are indivisible

Didn’t Salmond screw the prospects of Scottish independence anyway? The moment he decided to introduce the third option of ‘devolution max’ in the referendum – divides many who might otherwise have voted to leave.

Much Scottish culture and tradition is 19th century invention. I wonder also how this new and imaginary Scandinavian identity goes down with those who see their ancestry as Irish, many nationalists included.

“The moment he decided to introduce the third option of ‘devolution max’ in the referendum…”

Which is where all this is really headed. Salmond doesn’t want independence, what he wants is to get his grubby mits on the money and the power, without the over arching responsibility for things like defence and diplomacy.

Personally I think the whole devolution thing is a waste of time, except Northern Ireland. The power these assemblies possess is quite limited and the cost of their buildings plus all those assembly ministers seems like a waste.

I believe Cameron announced recently a plan to jump the gun on Salmond and force a referendum which would only have two choices; yes or no to independence.

Frankly it’s in the tories favour. No Scottish MP’s would make it almost prohibitive for Labour to get re-elected.

Beyond border security, in what interest to the rest of the UK is it to see one part of the union granted Devo max with benefits over the other 3 countries? None.

You cannot have 2 economies within one country & currency with unlimited borrowing powers.

Should be a straight yes/no to any referendum, anything else will antagonise everyone else in the UK that isn’t Scottish.

Considering Scotland would get lumped with £150bn debt from the off, not have AAA borrowing rates and would have to spend a significant chunk of its GDP on the servicing the debt I agree with others that Salmond doesn’t think Scots will vote for independence so will go for milking Westminster for as much British taxpayers money as possible as well as more power.

Everyone will be better off seperate.
The Tories are of course the most obvious winner, but Scotland wins, as does England.
England wins, because it no longer has to subsidise the Scotland, but Scotland wins, because its forced to earn its own way.

Educated Scots will no longer jump on a train to London and never come back, they’ll migrate to Glasgow, or Edinburgh.
Politics in Scotland will cease to revolve around who can beg the most from Westminster!

It could even improve defence!

Scotland would want little more than Fisheries Protection and Maritime Patrol, the UK could subcontract those services, in exchange for protection by our high end warfighters

so having watched the news, and seen sarkosy and DC cocking a snoot at each other when passing in the room anyone else think the “new best friends” era with regard to defence is over. Bang goes the rafales theory TD!!!

JDBFTRX has hit the nail on the head there. Much depends on what happens with Sarkosy. The word on the street is that not a lot of people are particulalrly pleased with the way he’s snuggling up to Germany.

I’m worried for the small nations of Europes periphery more than anything. This whole Euro business is essentially a large con meant to support German manufacturing, and unfortunately a lot of small countries in Europe and around it are going to pay a heavy long term price in order to support Germany.

“I’m worried for the small nations of Europes periphery more than anything. ”

Seems like *we* might be a nation on the European Periphery, now.

Thing is, I can’t help but think that this is a “good thing” tm. After all, this and the last govt’s international policy directives were mostly aimed at Africa & India. Maybe we should be trying to mould the Commonwealth into an trade union, tied together with DfID funding!!

That would mean a Newspaper had to give someone else credit, which is something they don’t take to lightly!

As for Europe, I think this is a good thing. This split in the Euro countries will not be held together just by a bit of treaty change. The Euro is dying, and I doubt much is going to save it. Just last week it was revealed in several of the lower key news outlets that the Germans are printing new Deutsche Marks in case the Euro fails and everyone goes back to their old currencies (a wise plan).

Ultimately “more europe” benefits Germany and France, and to a lesser extent some of the other countries, but it will shaft most of the smaller ones, who will find themselves bound by the rules, regulations and financial conditions of the larger states and unable to compete effectively in sectors like manufacturing, where they otherwise might be able to gain a big advantage.

faun trackway have won an £18million order from turkey for tracklaying equipment,trucks and trackway. They have also opened an office in washington DC, (like griffon hovercraft, you have to have premises in the US to get a look in, it’s a legal thing i believe, don’t quote me though)

From wired.com 15 Dec:
“But the issue would appear to be moot. In the statement, Meyer said he was “gratified” to learn that BAE “did not ultimately sell and does not intend to sell advanced thermal scopes to Pakistan.” He will drop his lawsuits against both BAE — which he said performs “important work… to protect the men and women of the U.S. military” — and McCreight.

It is not clear from the statement what compelled Meyer to change his mind. The lawsuit was not primarily about the scope sale, but rather about the slander and retaliation charges. Those go unmentioned in the statement.”

Not wishing to be stirring it, but why were the news reports of the PM’s visit to Afganistan centered around the RAF. OK he couldn’t get to Bastion, but the RAF are only a part of our effort and I notice that the photocall had to feature a female crew member. Not cynical in the least !

i read in the paper that typhoon has lost out to F-35 in japan, 42 ordered, ah well there’s still india and brazil. That’s brazil who’s just banned any ship flying the falklands islands flag from docking in it’s ports. oh shite!!

I just watched a trailer for this new film, and it looks pretty good. It’s supposedly inspired by true events, but here’s the thing – it’s actually starring real-life active duty SEALs!

I really don’t know what to think of this, aside from obvious propaganda, isn’t there some security risk (I assume they’re using aliases, but even so), and couldn’t this be used as a training manual by potential enemies?

Mark, I guess eventually, a relatively small number of Afghans -government officials in the main- will become insanely rich; and a few million peasants will become that much more dissatisfied with their lot in life.

Add a long history and culture of war, tribalsm and corruption into the mix, along with the various religious nut-jobs who want everyone to live in the stone-age, and I reckon China will find itself pretty busy in Afghanistan.

It would be benefits where I would make the cuts, not that I would take Spain as a good example, but un-employment only lasts a year, we could means test the fuel winter payment, means test child benefit are just three things I can think of the top of my head.

Yes I know its easy to say change this or that, and harder to think through the consequences, but IMO our social system should solely exist to maximise our human capital – i.e. good education (including free post 18 vocational and tertiary eduction) and health care are important as they produce productive highly skilled workers and keeps them working longer – some of the benefits people can receive suffer from the law of unintended consequences – its totally fair that a single mother, who is single from no fault of her own be supported until such time she can work, but its not fair if we then allow a teenager from a disadvantaged background to abuse child tax benefits and housing benefits to avoid working by getting pregnant straight from school, and frankly having worked in a very poor school in a poor area(for a year only) and talked to people who work for Sure Start, education to raise their aspirations has completely failed and will never work.

+1 on nuclear, I did my research for the PhD I never submitted on one of the materials used in AGR’s and met lots of people from the nuclear industry and as long as NIREX is sorted then I expect to see the Government cotton on to the fact that we need a large portion of our energy from nuclear (I can see tidal and hybrid off-shore wave/wind generation eventually by the middle of the century hitting around 30% of all generation, and us moving to a hydrogen economy for our surface transport fleet, but a mix of nuclear and coal with carbon capture is going to be needed for the rest of energy needs. I am not buying into fusion, it still produces high level waste in the form of the reactor chamber, and has consistently been just 50 years away since the early experiments in the later forty’s and early fifty’s).

Tubby
80% of the health budget is spent on people who will be dead within two years.

If you replaced the Welfare (healthcare, pension, unemployment) budgets with a “citizens wage”, it would be about £5k for every man woman and child in the country.

If you did away with education, you could give every child £5k a year, every year, from 0-21.
I know a lot of people who’d have been better off learning the three r’s and then using the rest of their “education” budget to buy a share in a trade business.

“and frankly having worked in a very poor school in a poor area(for a year only) and talked to people who work for Sure Start, education to raise their aspirations has completely failed and will never work.”

One in Three girls at my secondary school was, or had already been, pregnant by the 31st August in our final year.
Its hard to argue they didnt make a rational choice.

Wind just doesnt work*.
Huhnes “cheaper electricity bills through wind” are a 5% saving on bills only after a 30% energy useage reduction.

*Special cases aside, like wind to power heating in the scottish islands which is cost effective compared to diesel heating.

1) Scrap pensions/NI system, NI is income tax by a different name. Replace pensions by upgraded to auto entitled post age69 entitlement to Income support, and concoment benefits. Totally means tested.
2) Scrap child benefit we don’t need more children so stop subsidising them.
3) Increase Corp tax to recover lost Employer NI, payments, tax profits not jobs.
4) Scrap ALL local Govt it is all stupidly inefficient.
5) Work for benefits (under 69) essential.

IXION.
Perhaps a gentler version.
Tell those 16-45 they can only spend 9 years max on unemployment benefit(no more than 5 years continuos). Teenagers might start taking qualifications more seriously.
Encourage more state schools to teach for GCSE Engineering.
Limit child benefit to the first two.
Cut foreign aid from 0.7% GDP to 0.5% like most other countries. That would free £3.45 billion pa for Britain to spend on itself. Say £450 million off debt, £1.5 billion for defence, £500 m each for energy & transport infrastructure + grants to industry.
I would not scrap local government. Keep frontline jobs (police,fire,refuse,carers) but scrap 75% back office non jobs(diversity,climate change,facilitators,deputy directors,trendy managers,etc.)
It is easy to be cynical about fusion. We have not made the big breakthrough yet, but many baby steps forward have been made in the last couple of decades. These get overlooked.
In the meantime, I want a HTGR & ALMR built(high temp gas reactor & adv liq metal reactor).

Let’s start with Corporation Tax, which should be running at 35-40%. The notion that businesses would flock away from the country if this happened is utter rubbish.

Businesses don’t come here for the tax breaks, they come here because of the market, the good standard of living, the ease of doing business and probaby most importantly, the legal protection afforded to them by our contract laws.

In addition, I’d scythe away many of the tax deductible items such as depreciation, in order to stop the freakanomic accounting that takes place (just look at the MoD’s accounting, whereby the “running cost” of a Torndao is pegged at £45k per hour, when the actual cost is closer to £5-10k)

As for unemployment, the main problem is that without any form of specialist skills, someone who is unemployed, especially for a long time, needs to reset and ends up back at the bottom of the employment ladder.

This is where the focus of re-employment efforts should be. Everything that can be done to cut VAT should be done, as VAT is effectively a tax on consumption (spending), which is the one thing you need to boost the economy and create low level jobs.

In addition, the health and safety laws relating to building sites need to be dumped. Currently there are about twenty individual health and safety licenses for different jobs (CSCS cards). These should be scrapped in favour of a foremans card with the foreman taking responsibility for those working under him. This would make it much easier for the unemployed to find casual labouring work for example.

Education needs to be heavily rebalanced back towards English, Science and Maths, with a focus on the important basics. The “no child left behind” policy should be seriously reconsidered, as it ties teachers hands.

University education should be subsidised only on those courses which have a major use to the economy. If you want to study the history of art, fine, but you’re going to pay whatever the university feels like charging (uncapped).

Personally I’d can DIfD and find other ways to distribute that money.

As for the old bill, I’d like to see them focus at the local level on nuisance problems and information gathering, leaving the major operations to more centralised departments (drug networks tend to span regionally and sometimes nationally).

Energy wise, stop tarting about with pipeline dreams and just get on with using known reactors. I can understand investing in future programs and research, but not sitting on our hands hoping that the next big thing will be invented tomorrow.

Wave power over wind power, and forced efficiency savings.

Carbon capture coal is a goer. I don’t really care how green it actually is, as long as it looks and sounds green to the public. What can’t speak, can’t lie.

I should point out that by pipeline dreams I wasn’t talking about the pipeline from the article, I just meant they myriad of possible future reactors, all of which a lot of talking is done about while no real action is taken. In the meantime we could be cracking on with proven designs.

ChrisB.
The only production reactor is the APWR as being built in Finland. It is late & overbudget. Greens fail to mention the next 2 identical built in China are on time & budget, because they have all the knowledge from the 1st in Finland.
If you built a HTGR or ALMR, the first would get the inevitable glitches, but those that followed would be fine.
Britain had a small HTGR in the 70s. Japan built a prototype HTGR recently. The production version also could have made Hydrogen as a byproduct.
Why HTGR? PWRs burn 5% fuel meaning 95% waste. HTGR burn 65% fuel, leaving 35% waste. HTGR can run on a Thorium/Uranium mix.
An ALMR could burn 94% of PWR waste , while generating electricity. A working ALMR destroys the anti nuclear arguement.
As for carbon capture, I like that sugar beet processing plant, that uses its waste CO2 & warm water to grow tomatos to near organic standards in giant greenhouses. A clean coal plant could pipe its waste warm water & CO2 to giant greenhouses growing salad & fruit crops.
Scrapping small local hospitals only works if you have good transport links. Nobody wants an ambulance to take more than 20 minutes to get you to hospital.

“I would also reinvigorate the guilds and introduce engineering (of various types) in to schools. graded from technicians 1,2,3, to engineer, 1,2,3.”

I agree

“And the right to use engineer as a title like doctor.”

there was a petition on the number 10 website (the last one) to have engineer recognised as a professional accreditation signed by over 40000 people government say it current supports and and invests in engineering to an appropriate level.

A friend who runs a shop told me the other day he recently employed a long term unemployed guy who told him he had 5 people employed by the government to get him into work include one who helps him with techniques for searching thru the paper for to find jobs and one who is a motivation person to give him self believe he’ll find a job. Its eye opening

Chris totally agree with the mod accounting thing some real startling numbers would appear in relation to several a/c if the real life operating cost per hour was revealed.

Id turn DFID into a charity that the UK public can fund it if it so wishes. With a small fixed amount of government funding going to the FO for disaster relief.

I remember how my fists use to itch when faced with smug bastards who made statements of the

‘There are jobs out there for everyone that wants one and is prepared to work for a realistic wage’

Type.

I know what clinical depression is, and a close relative of mine who hasn’t missed a days work in his life struggles with the ‘Black dog’. My fists itch when people say all he needs too do is to ‘Pull himself together.

But my fists itch even more when I come across the

The lazy work-shy scum I deal with daily,(both male and female), who are either on the Jobseekers; or ‘the sick’ because they have’depression’. who clearly can work but have no intention of ever doing so…

The trouble is sorting the wheat from the chaff.

If we could do that we could afford Nellie, Dumbo and Babba (the fictional third carrier, together with all the bells and whistles…

Fantasy fleets may not be my thing but a bit of fantasy government draws me like a moth to a flame. Especially since I’ve just been enjoying Series 1 of Yes Minister.

There are two main problems in this country. All of which have been spotted by various Governments, but, funnily enough, especially by New Labour.

1. Education. Now I’m not a 3Rs man especially, I think that old fashioned type of education doesn’t achieve anything startling in itself. The problem is, and it is inextricably linked to the second problem I discuss in a bit, is parents and school attitudes to teaching. Teaching it must be realised is about a lot more than teaching subjects to kids. Its about paternalism, it’s about being caring and looking after the kids in your care, it’s about giving a damn beyond their results. A LOT of teachers are like this but the institution stifles it. My friend is a primary school teacher and she is forbidden to give her kids a cuddle, even when crying. A lot of these kids come to school, filthy, full of junkfood by parents that don’t give a flying shit. And yet they are not allowed to challenge the parents on why they are letting their kids come to school stinking. Kids need to have a solid 3Rs, they also need to be taught critical thinking. But above all, teaching needs to be seen as a social service. Combine education and social services departments, how can you possibly teach a kid whose parents don’t care about their child education or even their child’s welfare? You simply cannot do it, sometimes you’re lucky and some kids do well despite it all but most don’t make it. The best schools do well because their parents care about their education (which is why they spend the dosh) and because the teachers there see their role as being paternalistic, not just teachers of subjects. Teachers need to become social workers. Like it or not.

2. The Welfare State. The destroyer of this country. The elephant in the room. The most destructive thing ever unleashed on this country. And this is not a rant against welfare, we are a rich and compassionate country – I whole heartedly support having welfare. But our welfare system is utterly broken. It breeds dependency and concentrates misery and deprivation and normalises deviant behaviour and breeds people who simply cannot co-exist with other people who are bound by the economic reality of every day life. The welfare state divorces people from striving for their daily bread, there are people there to “support” you all the way. And Council House housing policies based on need concentrates misery so kids grow up in an environment that is utterly destructive to human nature. They cannot conceive of anything other than their next pleasure. It is all they have to worry about, the state won’t let them starve or die, they literally do not have to lift a finger. So they breed, their kids have no aspirations and are as dependent as their parents and then we expect teachers to be able to work magic on kids fed on junk food, allowed to do what they want because their parents do, and who have no interest in or need to learn because society will allow them to exist without it.

Unless you tackle these two fundamental issues, everything else is just tinkering. Sort out education and welfare and lots of other things will follow.

Broadly agree – see the fall of Rome! All the money spent on “bread and games” so its not like we haven’t had a couple of
f thousand years to study this problem!!

Perhaps we should study some of the yanks workfare progrmmes? They are weird because the republicans accuse the democrats of being communists, but even Obama’s reforms would hardly make them a welfare state – but with the size of their population and even bigger gap between richest and poorest than we have, we could possibly learn a few things from them ???

By to think notthe way Canadian education system is very different with a much greater focus on turning out reasonably behaved young citizens; yes its suffered a little from “trendy lefty” issues, but certainly not to the level of the UK. Schooling starts with Kindergarten, so the education starts later the kids being a wee bit more mature – are the top flight as good at 18 as the brightest and best in the UK? Possibly not, my wife seems to think not, but then that is why a lot of degrees over here have a fourth year. Back to the schools though, we have ‘spirit days’ each term for example when the kids go in sports shirts, with their hair died funny colours, and lessons are binned in favour of outside agencies doing presentations on recycling or something. Also
even in a VERY ethnically diverse school full of immigrants, they sing Oh Canada every morning, and even if they may learn about each others cultures, there is red and white and make leafs everywhere – solid national identity anyone??? :-)

Perhaps. But very often, we have the same types of time limits and stringent requirements, the problem is they are not enforced. If you went by the letter of all the Benefit regulations the different schemes are actually very strict. It fascinates me to see the Government declare that Jobseekers for example will have to look for work full time. The regulations already stipulate that! But there’s no backbone in the system to enforce things as they should be. And it is because there are numerous agencies out there who “support” claimants and who think the best way to do so is to milk every penny they can from the system for them. So instead of teaching them a few hard lessons and letting them lose money, they get led by the hand, letters are written, and decisions overturned on a daily basis. And so the claimant who did not fulfil their obligations and knows it, goes to their support worker or an agency like CAB or Shelter and get what they want in the end. Times that by hundreds of thousand times a year and people are allowed to live like farm animals, everything done for them. I am sick to death of people for example, getting someone to fill in their forms because “they can’t read”. Why are people being paid benefit that is not conditional on literacy or going to reading and writing lessons, why are we rewarding this ignorance and this destructive idleness?

So a start, enforce the rules that are already in place and ALL benefits are conditional on literacy if the person is of normal learning ability.

You’ve also got to look at the money Government spends on “schemes” and other third parties like ATOS.
ATOS are a joke and simply they create reports full of lies, I know this from my own experience. I’ve even heard they are now involved in the tribunal process.

The government aren’t currently enforcing the rules, they are quite simply shafting people for idealogical reasons and profit for their friends at the private companies, the same can be said for all the other departments.

Its amazing, doctors to run the health service but they’re professional medical opinions ignored when it comes to disability benefits. What’s next? The Navy to run the Army whose will then run the RAF who will be fighting ground wars. Just following the logic set already….

There is a problem with the welfare state, always has and will be, it will remain dysfunctional while the politicians remain dysfunctional as well, again same for each department.

Iain Duncan Smith reforms won’t really archive anything, anything to cut costs then fixing the problem. They cut housing benefit, yet at the same time say they have the right to buy further reducing the amount of affordable housing on the market!

I’m 24 and I’m really worried about the future. We’ve got a government which is no better than the last, while Labour have got sod all to say, whose latest wheeze is to blame the BBC.

Who the f’ am I meant to vote for in the future?
Tory and Labour don’t really look that much different when you look at them closely and the Limp Dims are just a party with no back bone.

1. the USAF has reached a decision on its ‘Light Air support Aircraft, AKA armed trainer. In somewhat of a surprise it has picked the Super Tucano for an initial order of 20 aircraft. What is no surprise is the the ‘other party’, Beechcraft with the AT-6, has headed for the courts seeking a review of the process.

2. The New York Times, repeated in our local rag, has claimed that the US intends to move from a Defence policy of being able to conduct 2 major combat operations at the same time to an ability to conduct one major combat operation while retaining the ability to deter a second major player.

On your first one, I think the news piece stated that they are for training the Afghan airforce (presumably means that they are given to them when combat readiness is reached)

On the second, we can now draw a linear trend line:
– early 90s down from 2 and a half wars to two
– early tens down from 2 to one and a half
– by early thirties US relative power will have declined so much that they will only be willing to engage in an existential conflict

Australia is building relevant capabilities for that scenario; Europe is not

Aussie
A sign of the times?
Yes, but not the times of “American Decline”, but Russian.
The US planned throughout the cold war to fight simultanious wars against the USSR and China, in Europe and the pacific.

That looks a little extreme now

Paul R
The government “cuts” are a £20bn increase in public spending.
Thats right, far from being cut, government spending, on everything except the police and armed forces, has gone up.

The housing benefit “cut” will crush Labour if they make a stand on it at the election.

I think Labour don’t need to make a stand at all, Ed Millie is a useless leader so making stands to crush themselves is not required!

I remember when I lived on a council estate, my parents mortgage repayments weren’t as high as they currently would be, housing benefit of 2 weeks would have probably matched the monthly mortgage payment. (It was an ex council house on an estate on the very edge)

But because the council houses were sold, house prices have gone up, now with private land lords it will cost the tax payer more. I’m not talking small houses, 4 bedrooms(1 which is a box room) big enough to fit in a double bed and furniture, large separate lounge and dinning room. These houses should have not been sold off!

For what the government pays out in housing benefit, they should have kept stock. Why pay stupid amount of housing benefit when the house its going to is over priced or something which was ex council!

The Labour and Tories only have themselves to blame on the cost of housing benefit, the cause and cost of housing.

I agree, housing benefit is a lot of money, to some extent too much, but again lets not look at who the tenant is but who the bloody owner is!

But again it seems to fit in with government, utter useless at getting a good deal and good at wasting tax payer money.

Housing in this country is just stupid. In a brand new local development, why pay £300k for a brand new SMALL three bedroom house when you could spend around £250k on a three bedroom bungalow with a bigger ground plot, likely a garage and off road parking built in the 60s around the corner? That is just stupid!

Oh and I do not expect housing benefit should be paid to people living in the really posh top class locations in London, its simple, you’ve been priced out. I would suggest we’d give them a free bus and train pass, but we all know how cheap they are nowdays….

@Ixion:
“2) Scrap Child Benefit . .” Oh, yes we do. From a macro level the population (and therefore tax base) is only growing due to immigration. The problem is that there is an increasing number of illegal immigrants that slip past the the tax system due to lax border controls. Only a “citizenship amnesty”, compulsory Census and tying benefits (including non-emergency NHS care) to citizenship will cure this. If the working population shrinks or only “benefit scrounger” families have children, then the tax base would collapse starting a vicious circle of cost-cutting and further tax base reduction.

“4) Scrap local govt . . ” I agree that we have more than one layer of government that duplicates functions (something about our much vaunted “checks & balances”?). Actually I’d do it the otherway round. Sort of. Central Govt. spent £503b in 2011 while Local govt. spent £179b. so local govt. only spends 26% of the total. I’d devolve as many functions of government to local County authorities (but feel free to make Regional authorities to replace them) as possible (Policing, Education, Health), and have all tax gathering carried out at Local level, paving the way for local setting of Council, income and business taxes. That way local authorities would be able to attract inward investment and population movements directly by setting low taxes, or accurately reflect the cost of services by increasing taxes.

“5) Work for benefits essential . .” Verymuch agreed. But I’d call it “national service” – basically any central or local govt job that can be trained for in 6-12 months (street cleaners, hospital porters, clerks etc.) should be given to the unemployed in return for their benefits. The unions would complain, but but slowly introducing it via replacments for natural wastage it shouldn’t cost anyone their job. Will also reduce the pensions and payment burden (these ppl are on benefits not “being employed”). I definitly foresee some unintended consequences tho’

“We have too many small hospitals . .” Maybe get the Health Trusts to concentrate high end treatments and surgery at a few large “centres of excellence”, but Maternity, A&E, Recuperation and out-patient treatment are just the sort of thing that should be local. Either because you need to keep transit times low (A&E, Maternity), or visitors/out-patients don’t want to be inconvenienced by repeated long travel distances. Bring back “Cottage Hospitals” I say!

@John Hartley:
“Encourage more state schools to teach for GCSE Engineering.” Actually we need to rebalance the effort put into SEN – average – G&T pupils. Much of the effort is put into the SEN end of the spectrum (especially for badly behjaved kids, what a disincentive it is for most pupils in my Wife’s school when the Kids in the “unit” get to go to a restaraunt when they behave well, while the rest of the school struggles to put on any form of school trips), but not enough at the G&T end. Yet we rely on the G&T pupils to go to university and add value by being employed in British R&D and sutting edge Engineering companies.

@Chris B:
“Businesses don’t come here for the tax breaks . . ” Actually you’d be surprised. Youngs Foods have closed an factory in Cumbria because funding had dried up, Nestle are leaving Croydon for the same reasons. The sorts of companies that don’t come here for the tax breaks are the SME’s that have grown up in the UK. For those we need to make Taxation clearer and rmeove the “tax avoidance” grey area’s, mybe by setting business taxes high and allowing reductions for specific targets (less waste, WEEE recycling, Lower energy consumption etc.) that way the onus is on the companies to prove the reductions in tax that they need. Also, I’d put as much effort in stamping out corporate tax avoidance as we do Benefit Fraud – snd “name and shame” the big infringers!

“As for unemployment, the main problem . .” Someone on this thread has said that pupils should be given money to spend in an education “market”. While I disagree with that for KS1-KS4, for further and continuing ed. having a bunch of Education “crediuts” that you use to gain access to CFEE’s colleges and Tech. Colleges is a good idea (and one that the Lib. Dems. have banged on about for the past decade – but inexplicatbly forgotten about now they are in power). That way when (and nowadays is is increasingly *when*) you are made unemployed, you have the oppurtunity and access to re-training to help get another job. Just trying to get more “unskilled” jobs out there (apart from govt. jobs – see above) won’t work, as the minimum required living standard in the UK is too high to make such companies uncompetitive internationally. Also, I know a few people who “bunked off” for most of their school careers and, now they’ve been confronted with the awful truth of benefits and low-skilled work, are desparate to train themselves up and are highly motivated to do so.

“University Education . .” Agreed totally. We don’t want to stop people studying Medieval Literature at Oxbridge, but such “vanity courses” should be unfunded by the taxpayer. Taxpayer funding should be led by whatever professions we currently have an imminent “skills gap” in.

Also and Further,

I wouldn’t scrap DfID, but rather channel all non-emergancy funding into Commonwealth countries as part of a way to re0invigorate the Commonwealth. Also, I’d tie funding to specific goals (i.e. India gets £450mil – but only if they eradicate slums in 10 years). We could also have senior and junior members of the Commonwealth (Senior as in UK, Canada, SA, Australia) with the Senior members helping to direct policy, and bearing responsibility for the Junior members. Once a threshold is reached (democracy, living standards, low amounts of poverty etc.) then a junior member gets invited to the senior members club. Such a carrot method would work much better on states like Kenya and India who are aspirational, and who would see seing a senior member in anything as something to aim for. We could even open membership of the Commonwealth to new members!

The benefits system is definitely broken, as IXION, Chris B. and Phil have said. On another thread someone mentioned a citizen’s wage to replace all individual benefits (i.e. except carers allowance and Child Benefit) If you set it at minimum wage -10% then that should encourage people to take most jobs (until Labour come into power and up it to minimum wage level!) and streamline the benefits system.

As for renewable energy, I’ve always seen the utility for wind and solar as being “disruptive” technology. Rather than large scale projects undertaken by the energy companies, enabling solar and wind to tie into the grid on a personal scale would produce greater benefits, provide better resilience and the distributed nature of the power generation means that energy will be flowing into the Grid from soewhwere as it is rarely not sunny or windy *everwhere* in the UK. Having said that a backup of 25-30% nuclear/clean coal/stored energy is necessary to take into account usage spikes and dips in natural generation.

Finally, even though I regard myself as a Liberal (even a Radical), I see no use in the EU in its current incarnation. Free Trade Area? – yes, Common Border controls & harmonisation of Safety & Manufacturing standards? – yes, Centralised undemocratic super-state? – no! It’s one of the 3 reasons I stopped my party membership in 2006 (the others being Defence Policy and the scunner Campbell!).

Update: “5) Work for benefits essential . .” Verymuch agreed. But I’d call it “national service” – basically any central or local govt job that can be trained for in 6-12 months (street cleaners, hospital porters, clerks etc.) should be given to the unemployed in return for their benefits. The unions would complain, but but slowly introducing it via replacments for natural wastage it shouldn’t cost anyone their job. Will also reduce the pensions and payment burden (these ppl are on benefits not “being employed”). I definitly foresee some unintended consequences tho’

Actually, if I were made Benevolent Dictator For Life, I’d make such a National Service scheme compulsory for all 18-22 year olds. That way the jobs would attract young adults with a range of skills and backgrounds. Some would be able to “stay on” or train further (SRN – Ward Sister, or care worker – supervisor) while everyone would get an experience of what it is like to do these, often thankless and menial jobs.

““4) Scrap local govt . . ” I agree that we have more than one layer of government that duplicates functions (something about our much vaunted “checks & balances”?). Actually I’d do it the otherway round. Sort of. Central Govt. spent £503b in 2011 while Local govt. spent £179b. so local govt. only spends 26% of the total.”

Its actualy worse than that, because 80% of local government funds are grants from central government.
So only 5% of government spending is really local.
But even that isnt really local, because central government tells local government what to do, and councillors who object are sacked by “The Standards Board” and barred from standing for election again.

““Businesses don’t come here for the tax breaks . . ” Actually you’d be surprised. Youngs Foods have closed an factory in Cumbria because funding had dried up”
But thats the problem, “high tax and grant back” attracts only wasters, interested in claiming grants, “rent seeking”.
A serious business will go wheres theres a 10% tax burden, not where theres a raft of grants it can claim back in return for brown evelopes to the right mandarin.

““University Education . .” Agreed totally. We don’t want to stop people studying Medieval Literature at Oxbridge, but such “vanity courses” should be unfunded by the taxpayer. Taxpayer funding should be led by whatever professions we currently have an imminent “skills gap” in.”

But who gets to decide where theres a skills gap?
What Government Inspector with his clipboard and tick list would have green lighted iPad design in 1995?

“harmonisation of Safety & Manufacturing standards? – yes”

But the EU doesnt actualy decide those, for the most part, they are international standards that are simply passed into law by the EU, frequently in poor ways.
The icelandic air disaster was entirely an EU cock up. Once, a plane flew over an active volcano, it was virtualy sandblasted and nearly crashed. So an international warning system was set up, to warn pilots about active volcanoes so they could avoid the ash cloud in future. The EU over reacted, and decided to impose no fly zones, until it could be proven that the ash cloud was safe, but created no system with which to prove safety. In the end, the airlines just launched their planes from outside EUrope and handed a fait accompli to brussels.

“We don’t want to stop people studying Medieval Literature at Oxbridge, but such “vanity courses” should be unfunded by the taxpayer”

I’ve bitten.

There is nothing “vanity” about an education in history. It teaches critical thinking (the main thing that this population lacks), it teaches research skills, it teaches argument, it teaches eloquence, it teaches inter-disciplinary subject. In short, it can produce a perfectly well educated individual who is armed with valuable and transferable skills and a mindset that questions and researches and seeks answers. This inverted snobbish thinking that we should all be praising plumbing and engineering courses is tedious. The country will not be a better place as a whole if we shit out lots of engineers and vocational folk.

Kids need to have a solid foundation in the 3Rs and critical thinking – critical thinking is, excuse the pun, critical. People must question, people must think, people must seek answers. It is not human nature so it must be taught and instilled and subjects like history and media studies that people take the piss out of teach that in spades.

So, a solid foundation in the 3Rs, a solid foundation in a foreign language, taught from primary school, a solid foundation in critical thinking skills, a solid foundation in religious studies and media studies and a solid foundation in the natural sciences, and then they can choose as they get older and focus more and more on what suits them, from vocational to Medieval Philosophy if they want.

What is also needed is a more coherant “Second Chance” where people who made the wrong choices when they were younger in A Level or Degree subject can get a subsidised second crack at a subject they have realised would be more useful to their circumstances.

Now, I could stand on my soap box and rant about local government until I dropped dead. I could write a book on what I think is wrong with local government. Volumes even. Even the words make me angry.

But, a local authority of some sort IS needed. They undertake the minutiae of daily existence that has the most fundamental impact on people’s lives. They fix street lights, highways properties and works, waste disposal, trading standards, building control, development plans and planning applications. These are all utterly fundamental services and it makes sense for local units to deliver them as the localities are very different in characters and needs.

The trouble with local government is that is spends a huge amount of money (a lot of it funded by central and devolved government coffers) on pointless, stupid, inane services that the rest of the world does perfectly well without and which the evidence base for success is very low or non-existent.

These initiatives need to stop. The whole system needs a massive overhaul. The Government does not even know what legal obligations it has placed on local authorities, it has had to go cap in hand and ask people to think of them and from that database it wants to cut them down. So we have no idea what local government is supposed to be doing in its entirety and money that should be going to core services is being spent on politicised and pointless little programmes that become self justifying and I’m going to stop right there before I REALLY get going!

Local Government must exist. But its duties should be rolled back to core services with funding only allowed to be channelled to other schemes when the core duties are being discharged effectively and that will be decided on a qualitative basis, and not on poxy targets and PIs.

It’s hard, local government should have autonomy, but it also does stupid shit with its autonomy. Like the Labour councils who refused to put into place civil defence measures in the Cold War because they were anti-nuclear so the Government had to make them by passing the 1983 law and some still ignored it.

It’s not an easy question. But some Councils are just too big for their boots now and too self justifying. And smug.

“Actually, if I were made Benevolent Dictator For Life, I’d make such a National Service scheme compulsory for all 18-22 year olds. ”

National Service, the solution to all our woes! The populist conception of National Service doesn’t take into account its enormous, budget busting cost, its huge tranches of almost untrainable soldiers who spent most of their time in jail, the delays in education, the interruption in the lives of perfectly normal and decent people and the philosophical problems of when a central government can force you to fight when the country is not in a state of war and needs defending from a livid and obvious threat of destruction.

My experience of interacting with Local Government has been consistent with dealing with petty individuals, detached from reality, who are self serving and corrupt to the absolute core.

If I were the Benevolent Dictator then I would scrap the lot of them, replaced by centrally appointed administrators. Chose your name for them, Governors or whatever. They and their staff would be responsible for handling things like waste disposal etc.

No committees, no faffing about.

I also distrust all this talk of compulsory schemes. That sounds a lot like enforced labour to me, a route you absolutely don’t want to be going down. It would also throw a spanner in the works when all those people refused to work such hours and such jobs for such little pay, leaving a gaping hole in services as they effectively went on strike.

The government needs to do two simple things; actually help people find jobs and actually encourage employers to take on jobseekers.

A CV database of jobseekers, minus the names and addresses (give each CV a code which the employer then gives to the Job Centre) would be a start.

I also find it somewhat laughable that jobseekers are left to their own devices for 12 months before being offered the help of private companies to touch up their CV’s etc. Surely that aid should be provided right off the bat?

On to the NHS and I mostly agree with what people are saying about centralising some health care specialities while keeping some services (A&E, Maternity) on a more localised basis. At some point the extreme cost of GP’s also needs to be clawed back.

Again to Education, I just think certain courses have limited applicability in the real world. I’m not saying we should focus purely on engineering or things like that, but I do think there are a lot of courses that really ought to receive no government funding, while others are essentially made free. And yes, that includes Media Studies.

Jedi
Standing again in May.
Last of my “nice” leaflets will be out this weekend (hopefully, rain dependant) then its 5 months of dirty tricks leaflets to utterly destroy labours vote.
My favourite plan so far is “Vicious Tory Cuts Exposed” in big red writing, and then a break down of all the spending increases, with “rent a gob” quotes. And of course, a breakdown of the local MPs wages for being a councillor, MP and his expenses, that sent them mental last year :)

Phil
I’m afraid I’m with Phil on Medieval Literature from Oxford, its Modern Literature from Bolton you;ve got to worry about.

The problem with local government is, it isnt local.
The average size of a local government in France, Germany and the United States is 10,000, its 180,000 over here.
We need local government, and it needs to be Democratic (frankly, it doesnt matter if the Libertarians or the Communists control your local council, they cant change anything)

I think some sort of National Service would be good, if your 18, dont have a job, and arent studying, you should at least be offered it as an option, pays just beer money, and at the end, you get a ford fiesta (or such) as a bonus, along with hopefully some sort of skill.
I know you all dont like my charecterisation of infantrymen as knuckle dragging idiots, but all the former infantrymen I know are(!) and all of them have pretty decent jobs because the army turned them from layabouts into people who could get up on time.

“The average size of a local government in France, Germany and the United States is 10,000, its 180,000 over here.”

As ever its a question of balance. Local Government in France was the other extreme, hyper local to use a modern phrase which I obviously despise. But that’s just too inefficient hence a lot of the units have amalgamated, officially or in union.

One needs to strike the right balance between size and efficiency and local conditions. Some things are not particularly efficient when centralised and scaled up, for example waste disposal – it’s a pretty local job organising the routes and lorries etc.

Trouble with local government is the fact that it is so specialised in its functions that a lot of people become managers simply by virtue of doing 10-15 years and get promoted to their level of incompetence. It’s chock full of self-important middle managers all doing some elaborate dance trying to seem useful. Wipe out 50% of the functions of my local authority and 90% wouldn’t notice, shut down waste disposal or highways and 99% would certainly notice and react forcefully in about 8 hours.

Super Hospitals – difficult but some specialities are better off concentrated. Go to a hospital specialising in cardiac medicine and you know you will see a cardiac specialist, in general hospitals, its best not to need a specialist at the weekend or after hours.

“My experience of interacting with Local Government has been consistent with dealing with petty individuals, detached from reality, who are self serving and corrupt to the absolute core.”

I never realised we had spoken!

“A CV database of jobseekers, minus the names and addresses (give each CV a code which the employer then gives to the Job Centre) would be a start.”

Never will happen. Data protection is a HYPER sensitive concern, especially since that disk went missing with millions of details on it. No way will Government ever develop such a database, and if they did, it would be horrendous to use.

“Again to Education, I just think certain courses have limited applicability in the real world.”

Any rigorous education, no matter what in, is a wonder of the world and is what makes us civilised. It all comes together, there are very few courses out there that are probably useless. There are a lot more traditionally “useful” courses badly taught that accomplish nothing.

Education and learning is so much more than the subject.

Neglectful ignorance is humanity’s worst sin in my eyes.

I watched Afghans with a careful eye and I realised that most of their problems stem from their illiteracy and lack of critical thinking. They exist in a “natural” human state in an unnatural human environment. And it’s not a good place to be.

The education starts with not invading Murmansk. Not in a billion scenarios is that ever an answer. Even I know that, and I failed the infantry suitability evaluation question (otherwise known as the recce / infantry selection test), namely “there’s enemy out there somewhere, now go and find them”.

Whilst ‘Facts’ are always up for questions, like who gathered them? Are they lying, are we comparing apples with apples? etc.

It isinternationally accepted that despite having the budget of a half decent news year eve party Cuba has very low rates of; and very high rates of detection in the early stages of; Cancer, Heart disease,and other chronic illnesses. It has many local clinics, almost one per street, everyone gets regular medicals, etc etc. It has been studies as a way forward for Western health care, you can imagine what the American right thought of it!

Sorry of it causes you Ideological pain.

Chris B

I recount this story of trying to book a professional visit to see a serving prisoner.

Me:- Tel the prison, given the number for the office that deals with such things.

I telephone that number – no reply after several attempts.

I telephone main Prison Number, they confirm that is the correct number.

I telephone again next day no reply after several attempts.

I telephone main prison number and complain about non response.

“Oh we know said the operator it’s their policy not to answer the telephone”!

I point out that is stupid and the response is

“That is the number for legal visits and the only one which we can give out”!

Me:- I ask them to put me through internally.

They refuse they are not allowed to do that.

I ask to speak to deputy governor responsible. He refuses to talk too me.

I write to deputy governor pointing out thsi stupidity.

He writes back explaining that if I wish to speak to prisoners I should call XXXXXXXXXXXX the same number I have been ringing.

I write back saying in effect ‘Balls’, and the Deputy governor confirms by return that ‘That department is experiencing IT difficulties and will not be able to answer calls for some time.
I write back requesting they call/ write to me with an appointment and perhaps an alternative number. I receive no reply.

In the meantime, time ticks on.

Client is produced at Crown court Judge tries to bollock me for not preparing defence.

I produce this pythonesque correspondance.

Judge goes purple and order his clerk to contact the governor immediately. Somehow Crown court judges tend to get their calls answered.

I am given an appointment to see the client the following week.

In the meantime I get a letter from the governor accusing me of trouble making! And if I need to speak to a prisoner all I have to do is call XXXXXXX –

Try talking to the Child Benefit Office. They are paranoid on a Stalinist level, especially since they lost their disk. They flat out will not deal with other Government agencies or local government agencies.

I’d love to see the actual physical office, I imagine it is behind a moat with searchlights and towers and more pat downs for CD ROMs as you leave work for the day than the Royal Mint.

Data Protection legislation in this country has outpaced the ability of Government to securely communicate with itself and local government. Both culturally and technologically (ie where the technology does exist, the culture is suspicious of it and will not use it or uses it in a bizarre technophobic manner).

“National security is dependent on economic stability….we have identified £5bn worth of savings Labour would make within the MoD budget if in government. We prioritise non-frontline savings, but we are clear that some savings will need to come from the equipment programme and manpower…areas such as civil servant numbers, bonuses and allowances for senior officers and MoD restructuring where further savings can be found….The package includes cuts that now they have been taken cannot be reversed, for example a reduction in heavy artillery designed for another era and the cancellation of Nimrod”

It begs the obvious question, if you can see all these obvious cuts now – why the hell didn’t you cut the fat when you were in government and put the money into strike length tubes and proper sonar on T45 (or insert pet project here)?

And for all the headlines, the £5bn is obviously double counting some of the cuts already made in the SDSR. By implication it includes the loss of the carriers and Harriers. And he’s rather faint in his support of Nimrod – he implies that they would have cancelled it even if it hadn’t already been sent to the scrapyard, but he would have made more plans for a substitute. It all fits my theory that MRA4 was a complete clusterduck and everyone knew it, but noone had the balls to admit it and cancel it sooner.

But the party cannot put an amount on these savings because the government has not released any figures. Murphy will do more work in this area, indicating that the £5bn figure could rise.

Murphy said of the £5bn of savings he would accept: “This is a through, forensic package which strengthens defence economic credibility and deals comprehensively with the idea that we oppose all cuts. The truth is the Labour party would have to make cuts if we were in power.

“Some of them are natural. We no longer face a threat of an invasion across the German plain. We don’t need those tank regiments. Others are painful, such as targeted reductions in some welfare programmes.”

But shadow defence secretary made clear that he would strongly oppose some cuts introduced in the government’s Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) of October 2010.

He said: “You have others [cuts] that we will strongly oppose. The idea that you cannot deploy an aircraft carrier with aeroplanes on it for a decade – whatever way you do the sums it doesn’t add up. It is not credible, it’s not popular, it is not sustainable, it doesn’t make sense. Across the world people are scratching their head at an island nation not being able to park an aircraft carrier off the coast of Libya.”

Murphy is to bring together a group of academics and defence experts next month to carry out a review Britain’s defence needs. This is designed to reassess the SDSR which has, according to Murphy, been overtaken by events. “When the government was doing its defence review it asked the wrong question. The question they asked was how much can they save rather than what is Britain’s role in the world. This led them to the conclusion to have an 8% year on year cut. They came up with the wrong response to the wrong question. What we are approaching on defence is to come up with a different answer to the right question.

“The government’s process has not survived the first contact with world events – the Arab spring, concerns about North Korea, heightened worries about Iran.

“An awful lot has changed in a short year. The government’s review already looks out of date in contrast to George Robertson’s [1998 strategic defence] review. Apart from the epoch changing events of 9/11 it remained strong and relevant. The government’s one was out of date within a few months.”

While Murphy accepts the scrapping of Nimrod, he was highly critical of the government for failing to replace the capability of the aircraft, which monitored the movements of Russian nuclear submarines.

“The government cut them up on live television. They treated probably the most expensive technically capable aircraft in our history like a second hand car. They just scrapped it and chopped it into pieces. What you can do is buy in a different kind of capability, possibly from the Americans, and refitting other airframes with some of the technology that would have been inside Nimrod.

Nimrod was the Rolls-Royce and it was treated like a secondhand car sent to scrap. Nimrod was an important part of the nuclear deterrent because it gave you the ability to know which other submarines were in the water when you were deploying your nuclear submarines.

“When they left the west coast of Scotland, you knew what was within a few hundred miles of them and what their unique signal would be. We would have filled the gap straight away,” he said.
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Labour accepts £5bn of defence cuts as Jim Murphy rejects ‘populism’

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Austerity is a hugely hypocritical POLITICAL settlement not an economic one. As I have just posted on the blog about infant class sizes and the lib dem council asking the government to relax the sizes.

“4 weeks ago Osborne came to the Dispatch box to tell everyone – the whole nation – about how austerity would be with us for years.

A week after he then gave out an average £210,000 bonus to 24,000 City workers in a bank owned 83% by the State.

Just 1 x £210,000 bonus could have paid for 10 teachers at £21,000 a year.”

You see? One rule for the rich and the bankers who give the Tories 50% of their party funds, and one rule for the majority who are paying for minority greed with austerity.

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| Link dfr1980
5 January 2012 09:12PM
Maybe it’s my stupidity, but I thought there was a consensus in British, nay Western, politics, that cuts were neccessary. Labour’s line has been simply not to cut ‘too far and too fast’. I don’t think there’s anything new here.

Labour have to accept that cuts have to be made. They are perfectly entitled to disagree with where the Tories are making the cuts, and suggest how they themselves would do it were they in power.

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| Link RedMiner
5 January 2012 09:15PM
Do these spending cuts include scrapping Iain Duncan Smith’s colossal vanity project, The Work Programme, costing 7 billion and rising to give Tesco and the like free workers at the tax payer’s expense, and predicted to have worse results than if it didn’t exist at all in finding the unemployed real jobs?

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| Link LabourStoleMyCash
5 January 2012 09:15PM
He said: “You have others [cuts] that we will strongly oppose. The idea that you cannot deploy an aircraft carrier with aeroplanes on it for a decade – whatever way you do the sums it doesn’t add up. It is not credible, it’s not popular, it is not sustainable, it doesn’t make sense.

It makes economic sense Dim Jim. We use a French one…..stooooopid!

They use ours when they’re built. Saves lots, Dim Jim.

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| Link clarkebond
5 January 2012 09:16PM
Response to thesliurge, 5 January 2012 09:07PM
You don’t have to oppose every single government proposal to oppose the government. This policy is sensible and shows that Labour won’t oppose everything for the sake of it.

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| Link JeffoY
5 January 2012 09:16PM
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IpswichMan
5 January 2012 09:16PM
Response to RickRick90, 5 January 2012 09:10PM
Except the poor aren’t paying for it. The taxpayer in general is. And the vast majority of tax is paid by the wealthiest 10%.

Why does the Shadow Defence Secretary not stick to his job and set about re-defining our sphere of influence; we do not want to go EAST of Suez ! We should be prepared to defend Europe; and that is all !

Has he less guts than Macmillan ?

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| Link clarkebond
5 January 2012 09:17PM
Response to LabourStoleMyCash, 5 January 2012 09:15PM
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realisscum
5 January 2012 09:17PM
Response to thesliurge, 5 January 2012 09:07PM
True to a point, but not so far as to argue against the government when they suggest that the world is round.

Can’t see it happening myself mind – it’s far too easy to rant on about cuts in the expectation that the public won’t start blaming those who piled up the debt in the first place.

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| Link Tonytoday
5 January 2012 09:18PM
As others have pointed out, what Murphy is saying reflects labour policy anyway. The cost of bailing out the banks has to be paid for somehow. However, the two main parties (I think we can forget about the LibDems for the forseeable future, possibly forever) can’t go into the next election just saying, “Hey, we can manage austerity better than those guys”. They’ve got to offer something to the public, most of whom will be pretty pissed off by that time.

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| Link NTEightySix
5 January 2012 09:18PM
Wankers like this should accept that the BANKERS ought to be held accountable and that the public sector is being used as a diversion to prevent the greedy sods from paying up.

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| Link IpswichMan
5 January 2012 09:18PM
Response to Gelion, 5 January 2012 09:09PM
Erm, Osborne doesn’t own the banks, nor does he give out bonuses. Nor does he have the power to stop banks paying bonuses.

When Labour bailed the banks out they had the power to set terms. So blame them.

In any case, it’s an irrelevence.

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| Link SkintAndDemoralised
5 January 2012 09:19PM
Nu Labour have nowhere to go. They are now a neo-liberal party who are so similar to the conservatives, and so discredited given their record in office that they can’t offer a viable opposition.

If they are carrying neo-liberal tools like Murphy they will never provide any realistic sort of opposition to the coalition. A clear out is required, but I suspect that as Milibean and Balls and the rest of the leadership are cut from the same cloth as Blair and Brown they won’t have the guts to change anything.

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| Link Fbayes
5 January 2012 09:19PM
Obviously there needs to be some cuts, Labour is playing a dangerous game by not announcing any cuts what so ever. How ever there is a very valid point, it is that the cuts are not working and they will cause another recession.

For all the talk about how the Coalition saved Britain from turning into Greece, that remains to be seen. They keep cutting and cutting and their economy keeps shrinking and shrinking. The same will happen here, just not on such a drastic scale.

Britain needs an effective opposition to stand up to this government, otherwise we will stagnate for years like the Japanese.

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| Link SuperClive
5 January 2012 09:22PM
Ah, Jim Murphy, the NUS leader who went on to help impose tuition fees on students. Lovely to hear him talk about credibility there.

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| Link PeleMcAmble
5 January 2012 09:23PM
Opposition is a great place to be – meal ticket assured and you can rock the boat as much as you like. And of course, you can always take the moral high ground whenever and you never have to make difficult decisions..

If Labour cared about the working class of this nation it would have got its act together by now. It needs proper policies not the likes of Murphy and Lord Glasman spouting off to newspapers for their own personal esteem. The best current example of those who love opposition is of course Diane Abbott. Claire Short was another and she even hankered for opposition when she was a government minister.

I really do despair about Labour these days. They seem to enjoy opposition more than power.

Murphy needs to explain why his cuts are different, who they will affect, and how the wealthy really will shoulder their fair share of the bankers’ debts.

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| Link Volvobollox
5 January 2012 09:24PM
Ed Balls’ argument “too hard, too fast” is perfectly credible. The speed and ferocity of these cuts are purely down to Tory ideology (the sort where John Redwood says it “makes people more Tory”).

Black Labour? Jesus wept.

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| Link LabourStoleMyCash
5 January 2012 09:25PM
Across the world people are scratching their head at an island nation not being able to park an aircraft carrier off the coast of Libya

So Jim “Dim” Murphy (5 watts) dosent know that we have access to the only nuclear powered carrier outside the US Navy.

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| Link CaptSensible
5 January 2012 09:25PM
But if the Labour party, so heroically led by adenoidal Ed rejects ‘shallow and temporary populism’, the cupboard will be pretty bare…

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| Link realisscum
5 January 2012 09:26PM
Response to Gelion, 5 January 2012 09:09PM
How much were bank bonuses in 2009 when Brown went through his charade of imposing a 50% ‘supertax’ along with a knowing wink that it’d be ok to go ahead and double them? Where were you then?

Afghanistan will revert to Afghanistan in 2014. Iraq is traumatised by the waste of trillions of dollars.

Redefine the scope of our foreign policy and then define the military. The British people are sick of “Our Boys” dying on far off fields.

Promise to bring them home.

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| Link DJT1Million
5 January 2012 09:28PM
More rubbish telling the Labour Party that it has to be even more like New Labour/the Conservatives to be relevant. Tempted to use the word ‘bollocks’ however will take a deep breath and respond politely……..none of the mainstream parties are addressing the real problems we are facing as all fail to see beyond the economic orthodoxy introduced in the 1980s by Mme Thatcher and her ilk. It’s failed, the problems created are getting worse and yet we are being told that even more of the same rubbish policies that caused the problems we are living with are the solution.

….and breathe……I’m so sick of this propaganda being pushed at us day by day. Doesn’t matter if we read the Daily Mail or The Guardian it’s the same rubbish.

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| Link Fbayes
5 January 2012 09:29PM
Response to LabourStoleMyCash, 5 January 2012 09:25PM
How many monkeys do you have to come up with these gags for you?

2. Black Labour – do they go in for ‘divide and conquer’, or was that just the white variety?

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| Link TeaJunkie
5 January 2012 09:32PM
Is there really much point in voting any more?

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| Link GreenAlzo
5 January 2012 09:32PM
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dfr1980
5 January 2012 09:32PM
Response to IpswichMan, 5 January 2012 09:18PM
…so why the fuck do we bother to vote?!

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| Link LabourStoleMyCash
5 January 2012 09:33PM
Response to Fbayes, 5 January 2012 09:29PM
How many monkeys do you have to come up with these gags for you?

Only one. Dim Jim supplies the raw material.

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| Link tiredofwhiners
5 January 2012 09:33PM
Response to dapperdanielle, 5 January 2012 09:14PM
Exactly who will vote for Labour if they don’t make a stand against the selling off of this country and the scapegoating of the disadvantaged?

You win elections by getting more votes/seats areas as the legal system is set up. That means not doing the ‘right thing’ but doing the thing that gets you the most votes. I am pretty much sure what is ‘right’ in your mind in ‘wrong’ in mine. This is why Michael Foot was unelectable (extreme Left wing not job working for the Russians) and why the BNP will never get in (extreme right wing who may have some point to make but the British in general would never vote for them in numbers as they have too many looney divisive policies).

So, as a lot of the people of this country are all for “scapegoating of the disadvantaged’ as you describe it but in our eyes , for right of for wrong do not see the disabled, but see the disabled welfare cheats in abundance, we do not see the genuinely unemployed but see the lifestyle choice spongers protected by the Guardian readership, we do not see the families trying to make end meets on welfare credits but see the payment of £40,000 in home rentals in Kensington to immigrant non-working families ……. and the story goes on, we will never vote for those who protect the sort of spongers, cheats and illegal immigrants whom Labour has protected and positively encouraged over the last 13 years.

Until Labour stop defending the indefensible and start playing majority politics again, they will never get back in power.

To do that, they will have to rein in the Unions so they stop looking like MIchael Foot all over again as the middle earners in the UK are only interested in a party which tries to support them, and don’t really care about Bankers getting away with getting paid too much as thats an aspiration for everyone, but do have a real objection to spongers, cheats and welfare claimants who do nothing for their money.

Just my opinion of course.

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| Link DJT1Million
5 January 2012 09:33PM
Response to IpswichMan, 5 January 2012 09:16PM
Good grief. The poorest taxpayers are paying a much higher percentage of their income than the ‘richest’ taxpayers and are, in addition, being hit by cuts that mean little or nothing to those self same richest taxpayers (tax avoiders more like). Your comment is an insult to the working people of our nation that are having their living standards and opportunities hammered by this God Forsaken coalition. Get a grip please.

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| Link bestie59
5 January 2012 09:36PM
Spud Murphy! Can anyone believe how low the Labour party has sunk when this specimen is part of the front bench.
You and your party can buy into this austerity crap all you like.
Not for me thanks.
This country really is well and truly finished, all politicians are singing from the same hymn sheet and the penny has not yet dropped for the masses they are are heading towards destitution.
Unbelievable there is no fightback in this country, Dave and Gideon have a spring in their step and the working man thinks its all the fault of Bob Crow.
Its so sad its laughable.

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Wow, what a response, I post a comment on a Friday, and by Monday the threads all lit up! :-)

@DomJ, Phil Chris.B: Local government, not complaining with your arguments. Whith this situation there are always 2 ways to go. Centralise everything and impose order from the top down (like the EU), or decntralise as much as possible and allow “citizen power” to create the structure (like Keynes and other distributists). Dom, you are obviously True Blue – where as I am Liberal Yellow, we’ll just have to agree to keep the debate clean and friendly :-)

Re. tax breaks – the problem is that within the EU, there is very little difference in skills and employability. There are justifiable areas of excellence in all of the 27 EU member-states, so if UK didn’t offer tax-breaks (or Urban Develpment Zones, or Development Corporations, or what ever this next batch are going to be called), then international business will go with the cheapest EU labour market and simply import to the UK (and there is free-trade amongst EU partners). What the government should be doing (ANY government), is encouraging the startups and SME’s. If those can develop and flourish, then they’ll be the next generation of multi-nationals, and be big and nasty enough to do without govt. help.

Re. Education: @Phil, actually I agree with you. Unfortunately yerars of Nat. Curriculum at KS 1-4 has resulted in “Teaching to Target”, and not encouraging Critical Thinking (your words), or an enthusaism for learning (my words). I learned about the ECW because school only taught about the Great Fire of London (with a passing mention of the Restoration), most of the truly interesing stuff I learned about has been a “filling in the gaps” of my knowledge around what I was taught in school. Not everone is like this, I deal with people on an IT helpdesk who are intelligent human beings, yet only know “as far as their job requires them” regarding computers because they have no interest in “filling in the gaps” even where it would have helped them self-diagnose an IT problem and give them a confidence boost into the bargain. The problem is, how to teach “critial thinking/enthusaism for learning” and then testing the teaching effectiveness.

Re. University courses. @DomJ. some should be obvious (such as Applied Klingon Linguistics), but doesn’t the government publish lists of professions where posts erent being filled (or candidates having to be brought in from abroad)? It’ll be reactive, but it’d be a start?

@Phil: Agree very much on your “second chance”, see my original post – some sort of coherent strategy for citizen’s continuing education and re-training will be a “very good thing”TM, in the “agile” jobs market we currently find ourselves in. Of course, I’m fully expecting DomJ to come back and say that each of us should be ferreting away funds to hedge against this inevitable occurance! ;-)

@Phil: It gets my back up when people refer to local government in this way. There are 4 levels of government (Parish, Borough, County & National), I’m a Parish councillor, and as fun as it is sitting in on an episode of the Vicar of Dibley, it’s frustrating as the next levels up seem to have departments dedicated to telling us “no” in our requests for pot-hole filling/street lamp replacement/gully emptying. And then there’s our National Parks Authority sticking it’s nose in too, it all seems as though everyone is sniping at everyone else a lot of the time. Oh, and I work for the most cost efficient County Council in England, there’s been a marked reduction in “community projects”, “Local facilitators” etc. since Labour left power.

@Phil: National Service – no, not national *military* service, though Martin would probably like to reintroduce something like it as part of his Grand Strategy series of posts, but national *government* service – to do the jobs our press seem to think are always going begging to recent immigrants, to give normal people a feeling of what it is *like* to have to clean streets, care for the inform and elderly, issue parking tickets etc. I hope it would instill a sense of sympathy for those who do the jobs and some restraint when as a member of public you deal with them. Also, if you are in a government service for “the duration” you become institutionalised into the way it works, and gradually all the initiatives andquality leaders and other s**t targets seem normal. Only the new inductees or the strong willed seem to notice anything is wierd, so more “fresh meat” passing though should enable changes to e highlighted more easily.

“@DomJ, Phil Chris.B: Local government, not complaining with your arguments. Whith this situation there are always 2 ways to go. Centralise everything and impose order from the top down (like the EU), or decntralise as much as possible and allow “citizen power” to create the structure (like Keynes and other distributists).”

The answer must be something in the middle. I am not keen on Local Authorities (and Parish Councils) being run from the centre to a great degree. They are, after all, Local Authorities. But neither can they be completely autonomous since they are responsible for upholding certain national standards (building control, food safety etc) and administering national policies (housing benefit etc). What is needed is a clean slate of legal obligations for LAs, pare them back to core requirements built around the more fundamental roles of the authorities like building control, waste disposal, trading standards, highways properties and works and then audit these functions in a qualitative manner, ie not by establishing numerical performance indicators. Then any further crackpot functions they wish to crack on with they can. Perhaps a Discretionary Central Grant awarded to every LA and they can do what they want with the money as long as they are accountable. These are all random ideas. But I think the key is strong core performance, audited by the centre and then autonomy in other matters as directed by the Council and scrutinised.

“Not everone is like this, I deal with people on an IT helpdesk who are intelligent human beings, yet only know “as far as their job requires them””

I hear ya brother! I come across people like this all the time, in fact I have them as my bosses. Done the job for 20 years and can robotically perform the role but they have a shocking lack of general education and a shocking level of ignorance. As you say, they have not filled in the gaps and when these people start to become managers this knowledge gap really starts to gape dramatically. The whole, I learned from the University of Hard Knocks, Earned my Spurs nonsense is just that and this attitude harms LA management and probably management in general. A good leader / manager needs a good level of general knowledge, critical thinking skills, research skills and a desire to continue learning. You need theory as well as experience, both can feed the other.

The Second Chance thing – I am not sure how it would work but I think it is needed. I know I made a mistake in choosing my University subject, but then I was 18 years old, completely clueless and worse, obviously didn’t think for a moment I was clueless. I am lucky in that my Afghan tour has allowed me to fund a MSc in a more useful subject but plenty of others with great potential are stuck because they can’t afford to re-train. And I am not talking about all these NVQs etc, I mean a proper, rigorous, in-depth and challenging course at degree or masters level.

“@Phil: It gets my back up when people refer to local government in this way.”

Yes but you don’t have much money so you can’t cause much trouble! In all seriousness, at this level to my knowledge the problems and solutions are very practical – there is a minimum of money and thus a minimum of jargon and new initiatives, just plain, simple hard work.

National Service – Is there any evidence these schemes are cost effective and achieve anything? Unless it is compulsory I can’t see it being. I am all up for making Jobseekers earn their crust but then you have the problem that they are supposed to be full time Jobseeking. Plus, it smacks very much of inter-war Germany such a scheme. I know that was a long time ago but the idea still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Let me share with you my example of interacting with the local town council just to give you an idea of why I despise local government.

A new parking initiative was introduced in my town. The initiative was to stop people from parking on pavements outside their home, a perfectly normal thing around these parts. The reason sited was “complaints” about women with push chairs having to sometimes walk out into the road because there wasn’t enough room, a fact that completely ignores the unwritten and strictly adhered to residents law (almost like a social concious) of “we’ll park on the pavement this side, you park in the road on that side, that way there’s always a free path”.

Two warnings first, then an £80 fine for each additional offence.

So was any new parking created to compensate? No. Was the council parking that did exist made free for residents? No, of course not.

Did it affect any of the councillars? Take a guess. They all had off street parking, except in the case of the Council leader… who had a small shop opposite HER (important later, just wait) and thus no worries.

It then transpires that the “complaints” could be counted on two fingers. One of the complaints was made by a woman complaining that she had difficulty getting round to her mothers house with her push chair.

Now I’ll give you three fucking guesses as to who the mother was.

That’s why I don’t like local councils, because time and again we see examples of what is essentially corruption.

And if it’s not corruption then it’s simple incompetence. Take the businessesman in Colchester who was forced to remove a sign from outside his shop because it didn’t fit into the “look” of the town.

It was a white sign, with plain blue writing on it. Nothing special or artistic. Just his business name, the address and the Telephone/fax numbers.

This is what I most take umbrage with, petty minded twats who are supposed to be representing local people and being considerate to their needs, instead causing disruption to the everyday running of towns and cities by meddling with those things that do not appeal to their own sensibilities.

I crave the day when we can strip away the extra layers of government found at the lowest levels and take the power out of the hands of small committees of meddling bastards like those that seem to infect Essex, and coincedentally all of the councils to which my relatives and friends come under.

It could be different elsewhere and maybe we’re just unlucky, but I strongly doubt that.

But anytime you want to sit down and chat about the ECW over a glass of Amaretto, now you’ve got my attention. Could yap for days about that.

Again though it comes back to a question of central control over local, in this case education. The theory behind local is that you’re supposed to give people flexibility to teach what they like. But then important subjects get missed out, like the ECW and how it changed our country forever.

At least a strict central curriculum, if done right, would provide a uniform level of education about important subjects. You need not have central lesson plans or anything that rigid, just a uniform national curriculum.

Now a question; why are their multiple exam bodies? Surely there should just be one exam body that issues the same exams to all schools, so that a GCSE means the same nationwide?

And finally, National Service.
While I can see what many posters desire from a national service scheme and while the aims seem very admirable, I absolutely cannot support any scheme that imposes on peoples personal freedom in such a severe manner.

Now I’m not an idealist and I accept that we need a raft of certain laws and measures in place in order to maintain the common good, but I absolutely think forced labour (national service) can’t be one of them, except in situations of absolutely dire national straits (WW3).

There’s no piece of journalism that can bring me to such a towering and gnashing rage than Private Eyes Rotten Boroughs.

Trouble with local government is that it’s local. Councillors know each other personally, they know people in their localities. And drinks are bought, round tables convened, charity auctions attended and Dave gets his planning application nodded through. It’s the sadly normal sleazy side of politics and human nature but at a local level the strings are much more easily traced and benefits are instant for individuals. At Central Gov there’s far more inertia and less scope to pull strings to benefit mates. The stakes are higher too. And finally, some Councillors have a vastly and grotesquely puffed up image of themselves. I’ve been to a few full Council meetings and I’ve never seen such preening, such chest thumping and squabbling. You get the same in Government but they at least do it better and have some dignity of office that stays their hand from hysterical and petty mud slinging. When they do come into work they then act like Emperor Aurelius with the world before them. So in short, local government, considering it effects people’s lives at a stroke in ways central rarely does, is extremely amateurish in a lot of councils. It’s fluorescent jacket syndrome.

Councils have plenty of lee way and make plenty of their own decisions. And as I said above, considering their amateur abilities I wouldn’t want them to decide anything other than when my bins are collected although to be fair that’s complicated enough.

But Phil
Whats the point of electing people to enforce central diktat?

The whole point of elections, is that that they empower people to change things.

Chris
“It then transpires that the “complaints” could be counted on two fingers. One of the complaints was made by a woman complaining that she had difficulty getting round to her mothers house with her push chair.
Now I’ll give you three fucking guesses as to who the mother was.
That’s why I don’t like local councils, because time and again we see examples of what is essentially corruption.”

But the problem is, the electorate is too big for such corruption to matter.
My ward contains roughly 4500 houses, but has 3 councillors.
If it was three 1500 house wards, an action like that could cost you the election.
Admitadly, it doesnt help that most people will vote based on their opinion of Cameron, but stupid people get stupid results.
Eventualy they’ll learn, if faced with the reality of their decisions.

And they empower amateur politicians to have enormous, instant and sweeping powers over its local citizens. They decide how to ensure we don’t live in filth, they maintain the local roads, the streetlights, they decide huge swathes of educational matters, they decide how social services will work, they decide planning permissions and building control and licensing. All very fundamental, essential services.

And some degree of central diktat is needed otherwise they won’t spend money on it. Case in point, Civil Contingencies. Long neglected, often deliberately which meant local citizens being at risk because of the ideologies of some amateur politicians.

And central direction is needed in other areas as they enforce national standards like trading standards, food safety and so on. It would be ridiculous having 308 different trading standards regimes, all crap because no one authority has the ability to do a proper job researching the policies.

Phil
“And some degree of central diktat is needed otherwise they won’t spend money on it. Case in point, Civil Contingencies. Long neglected, often deliberately which meant local citizens being at risk because of the ideologies of some amateur politicians.”
If people vote to cut the civil contingencies budget, when theres a disaster, they die. I dont see the problem.
Under the current system, central government gets to make the pick, or even, a commicaly distant “local” government. Mine, for example, during the snow the last few years, abandoned the Tory areas in the hills, and concentrated the snow ploughs entirely in the Labour flatlands.

”

And central direction is needed in other areas as they enforce national standards like trading standards, food safety and so on. It would be ridiculous having 308 different trading standards regimes, all crap because no one authority has the ability to do a proper job researching the policies.”
You’ve yet to explain what purpose is served by electing people to positions without power.
To put this into military terms, would we be better with elected Lance Corporals or Field Marshals?

“Although Tories bang on about it all the time, it is difficult to get a Maggie worshipping type to accept that she hugely increase Quangos and business regulation.”
I dont know, the two pin ups of the Cameron Youth are Carswell and Hannan.

Why don’t you tell me what powers you think local government should have?

And how would you expect a civil contingency framework to work if there was no input from the centre with regard to national resources, concept of operations and so forth?

And why don’t you make a FoI request to your council about the justification of its gritting routes? I wonder if you’ll see what you believe. Some councils are batshit crazy so maybe you will. But without the evidence you sound like a conspiracy theorist.

I do have a day job and I grow bored of your whining from the sidelines.

“And how would you expect a civil contingency framework to work if there was no input from the centre with regard to national resources, concept of operations and so forth?”
Whats the point of electing people to follow a central plan?
A national plan should be implemented nationaly, with national funds and control.
It makes no sense to elect someone to carry out a structured task that they cannot deviate from.

One aspect of the Civil Contingencies Act is making it a legal requirement for certain agencies, private and local to share information. How could a local authority make Western Power for example do that?

Yeah I saw that from last month as well, I just meant they might have ordered none, because the F16 order was a bit of a surprise.
I wonder if Iran and needing US protection had anything to do with the split order?

Oman was interested in 24 Typhoons originally, but they changed their mind: i guess that buying US, especially in this period, is a good way to gain support.
Besides, it might be that, for roughly the same price of 24 Typhoons, they get 18 F16 and 12 Typhoon: not a bad deal for them. Not politically, not financially, not militarily.

I think what they did is understandable.
Maybe this will influence the decision of UAE, too… they asked a proposal for the Typhoon, and Qatar is said to be following the UAE situation closely.

It is not exactly sci-fi to hypothize that the Oman buy leads to a UAE buy and eventually a Qatar buy too.

“USN likely to want to borrow RN minehunters for good long while yet. (Underwater) Drone pony fails to arrive.”

That article could be a bit more informative and a bit less bashing of the LCS with a little bit of effort on the writer’s side. It would be better.

Anyway, yes. Minehunters of the RN remain admired. What that article does not say is that recently the UK shared info with the US about minesweeping, and is helping them introduce SeaFox on their minesweepers in the Gulf. SeaFox is a UOR and a stopgap, and is on the way.

Delays and issues still to iron out in the LCS counter-mine kit were known already from some time, and it is not like the US Navy is ignoring it. Solutions that work (seafox and other upgrades) are on the way.

However, as it’s subscription only I’ve copy and pasted some of the highlights below:

“Today, only Britain, France and Greece fulfill the NATO requirement to spend at least 2 percent of national GDP on defense.

The EU currently spends half of its aggregated defense budget on military personnel, while the U.S. spends only a third. This even though the number of European troops — 2 million in 2010 — is lower than the U.S. for the first time in decades.

only some 4 percent of European military personnel serve on missions overseas, compared to 14 percent for the U.S.

U.S. spending on defense research and development equals roughly the total defense budgets of France and the U.K. combined.

, it makes no sense for Europe to still have 16 national naval shipyards, as well as three combat aircraft models, four main battle tank models and 23 types of armored fighting vehicles all in production. By contrast, the U.S. only has five major naval shipyards, one main battle tank model and one main armored fighting vehicle still in production.

Since the current budgetary climate makes significant increases in overall spending unlikely, the answer to Europe’s defense conundrum lies in pooling capabilities and engaging in force specialization to a degree not previously contemplated.

If the objective is to have a more expeditionary fighting force, European countries should concentrate on cutting capabilities that do not serve this purpose. In particular, main battle tanks, artillery and other heavy equipment can be significantly reduced without jeopardizing Europe’s ability to defend itself or respond to global crises.
However, it is also important that any cuts to existing capabilities be fully coordinated and underpinned by a commonly agreed-upon strategy.”

@Gareth Jones: ah yes, the “Europe must integrate it’s defence production base because it will therefore save money” trope. There’s one problem with it:-

It doesn’t work out in practice

Tornado, Eurofighter, A400, fill in your Euro project here, they usually end up costing more than national projects, and deliver late. I would aver the reason why is precisely the same as why we now have all those issues with the Euro: no European demos, so no willingness to shut down “your” shipyard for the good of Europe as a whole, no willingness to agree someone else’s widget, design or idea might be better than yours, etc.

It’s time we gave up. If industry want to integrate, fine. Leave them to it, but never give them *any* political cover or assistance

Three European fighter projects.
Rafale. Every last nut & bolt developed & built in France. Very Expensive, no exports yet.
Eurofighter Typhoon. 4 nations share R&D. Fine in theory, but expensive delays each time each nation wobbles.. Late & expensive, but not badly so. Some Exports.
Saab Gripen. Swedes stay in charge of project, but do not try to reinvent wheel. Quite happy to licence in others peoples off the shelf technology. So radar, engine, carbon fibre wing technology bought in from abroad. Cheapest of the three, quite a few exports.
I think Britain could still develop its own future combat aircraft if we copy the Swedes & licence in off the shelf technology.

The tankers requirement are important but it must be remembered that vessels now or planned to enter service will have significantly longer range than the vessels they replace meaning less tankers required it’s why extra money was spent on each individual unit.
Type45 and 26 are supposed to have 7000nm range and cvf 10000nm

What is being reported as fact is just opinions and viewpoints from Taliban members who have been interrogated. Bare in mind as well that these people believe almost anything their colleagues as it were tell them.

And annoyingly, the BBC has the report, but chooses to put excerpts up instead of the whole document. Talk about controlling the agenda and information.

“I agree but it seems to show their morale is getting better; if we wish to defeat/weaken them (to enable Afghan forces to beat them)don’t we need to undermine this morale?”

It’s hard to undermine this morale as they believe almost anything they are told. This is a result of the pre-literate society that they come from. To undermine their morale you have to get them, and then that only goes so far as the group that was engaged and the survivors simply tell the others that “you should have seen the other guy” type shit which is normally swallowed hook line and sinker.

They genuinely believe they are doing much better than they probably are.

Also, a lot of that is going to be bravado and gobbing off.

It’s a document with raw information in it from a particular source. Of course its more than good enough to beat NATO and ISAF and the West around the head with. Especially by those lacking critical thinking faculties like most of the Taliban. Ironically.

@ Phil – You obviously know more about this than me but the one extract I found worrying was this one:
“Taliban leaders anticipate personnel losses. Commanders and fighters are easily replaced, at least initially, with minimal impact on operations. After eliminating a commander, Isaf will often switch focus to other areas and targeting lines. While this type of targeting may remove specific insurgents from the battlefield, it will typically have a negligible effect on insurgent operations overall.”

I add the caveat that this is from personal experience but I see no reason why this isn’t true everywhere.

The leaders we kill are being replaced by progressively less and less experienced and less and less respected members. Attrition is so high that amateurs are stepping up to the plate and are easily alienating the locals by acting like thugs and the local Big Man. This is exacerbated by the problem that the replacements are not as well respected in general terms as their late predessecors (age, seniority and wisdom being prized in Afghan society – a lot of these replacements have less and less of it).

So the new leaders have less legitimacy, and have less currency amongst the locals. Grown men in Afghan don’t like to be threatened by young outsiders with rifles anymore than anywhere else.

Certainly, the graveyards of the world are filled with indespensible men, so killing leaders per se does not have much of a medium term effect, but the dwindling quality of their replacements is having an effect on community relations and their competence.

So killing leaders is good, not so much because you’re killing a personality (its human nature to move on and get over it and develop) but because they are replaced by less and less legitimate and able commanders.

They start to do desperate things because locals don’t like listening to arsehole upstarts, even with guns.

“A man who controls 10,000 soldiers is a threat, but once he’s brought to heel, he brngs 10,000 soldiers to heel with him.”

This isn’t Kingdom of Heaven Dom.

The constant attrition of local commanders (not least because they tend to be the bravest so get killed often) degrades the INS group amongst the locals. They alienate and upset the locals, who become less co-operative, which in turns makes the INS leaders more violent and so the cycle continues. They tend to get killed before the newbies make any headway in the community.

But again the caveat is this is my experience. I am sure the INS crystallises a lot more the closer to Pakistan you get.

I can see what Dom is getting at and I would imagine it was a calculated risk to follow the strategy of decapitation.

If you take out the leadership than although the whole may become less coherant and effective it does present a challenge when trying to find figureheads to begin negotiating with especially if those that are left are less experienced, younger and generally more unpredictable.

It worked in Iraq where the industrial scale SF effort was geared solely by a certain Mr Petraus to wholesale destruction on ‘high value’ targets but it doesn’t necessarily mean it has or will work in Afghanistan.

I suspect, as with most things, it will work well in places and less so in others

Speculation in Wired Mag about what will come out in the Chicago summit (accelerated going over to the Biden strategy)and the NATO meeting preparing for it:
“The details haven’t been worked out — those residual troops will probably live on joint bases with Afghans, U.S. officials have said — and NATO is unlikely to unveil any specific plan until its May summit in Chicago at the earliest. But it’s been clear for over a year that foreign military forces aren’t all leaving Afghanistan in 2014.”

Pranab Mukherjee and other Indian ministers tried to terminate Britain’s aid to their booming country last year – but relented after the British begged them to keep taking the money, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

The so called NATO missile shield will be first and foremost a system running from Romania, through Turkey and Israel, down to the Gulf, a presummary of the May summit declaration from Danger Room:
“There’s a long, long way to go in what the Obama administration calls its “phased adaptive” approach to the Euro missile shield. The SM-3 interceptors aboard the Monterrey — the first of many such ships headed to the Med — can only stop short- to intermediate-range missiles. (NATO would not disclose the exact range for the “interim” shield.) It will take years to add even the entire easternmost parts of the continent to the shield — the “phased” part of “phased adaptive” — as its first ground-based anti-missile missiles, which will be hosted in Romania, won’t be operational until 2015. And the shield won’t be able to stop intercontinental ballistic missiles until 2020, if everything goes according to plan.”

On the business side of things, there is now a bridging contract (two, in fact) in place to allow the Seakings retire early in 2016:

“Bristow will operate the S-92 while CHC is expected to continue use the AW139. The contracts are expected to get underway in July 2013 and will continue through to June 2017. Both contracts will be managed by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency”

Apparently the Argentines have told the UN that HMG have sent a fully tooled up V-boat to the South Atlantic. It will be interesting to see how far this goes considering a Trident launched just of Cornwall could hit most of northern Argentina. Me thinks the Argentinian defence ministry need to hold a whip round for a new copy of Janes’ or get an internet connection.

@x: I think this is just nonsense, designed to get us to reveal submarine locations. We should ignore it, grandly declare we never reveal submarine locations, then have a T boat make a public visit to Mare Harbour next month. With Prince William greeting them on the pierside :-)

correct. “we never comment”. If pressed, release a map of a submarine operating box, which shows every part of the international seas, plus UK waters. “It is operating in this box”. If really pressed, a port visit to somewhere like Florida, conveniently not in the S Atlantic, but within missile range.

I think the Argies have made a strategic error in trying to push the “S Atlantic should not be militarised with nuclear weapons” line. The USA, France (and Russia) is going to line up alongside us in ignoring anything that limits freedom of manoeuvre for strategic nuclear submarines. Having 4 of 5 P5 UNSC members deciding to ignore Argie emotions is going to give Ban Ki Moon – a consummate diplomat – a firm steer as to what is acceptable to world powers.

You are right, it was still the time when the Soviet navy was going full throttle to become a global force.

Funnily enough they also owned an island with a “dairy farm” bang in the middle of Hong Kong harbour (the gvmnt then used compulsary powers to buy the island for “development”).

A year ago Putin announced that there will be two foreign bases, but the other one (in addition to Syria) has not come to the fore yet (take 50% off all of their announcements is a good rule of thumb anyway)

Yes. The Argentines would have been caught between a rock and a hard place. They would have had to secure the islands from prying Western eyes. But would have been unable to ask the Soviets to leave because of lack of diplomatic support.

3.000 is one mighty observer force (presumably driving around in white-painted AFVs for their own safety); the Telegraph today
” the conflict in Syria enters its eleventh month, having so far claimed an estimated 5,400 lives, the Arab League talked on Sunday about amassing a force of up to 3,000 observers to halt violence. Arabi told ministers he had already proposed the idea to the UN General Secretary.

Arab ministers are meanwhile engaged in intensive talks with Russia and China in the hope they can encourage Bashar Assad to allow peacekeeping forces into the country.”

AOL news “Taxpayers’ to keep Bombardier sweet?
The taxpayer may be set to dig deep again – up to £80m – to help subsidise the Bombardier train plant in Derby. Bombardier is actually now a Canadian-owned company but Bombardier has made the future…”
– BAE tactics, but wasn’t thinking of that, but rather the relative importance of sourcing train vs. key defence equipment onshore… and what should be worth a subsidy

NAO has now published an overview (2011) of its work on MoD, an excerpt from p.7
“In our report on the Major Projects Report 2009, we found that the Department had a future funding gap of between £6 billion and £36 billion in its equipment programme. In March 2011, the House of Commons Defence Committee explored this issue further, noting that the NAO estimate does not reflect the fact that the Department will now meet the full cost of paying for the successor nuclear deterrent programme (some £8 billion), nor does it reflect the judgement by the new Chief of Defence Materiel, Bernard Gray, that a further £5.5 billion should be added to the overall cost of the equipment programme.2(=foot note for dating the latter piece of information)”

So this famous gap, so aptly used to communicate a political agenda is “anything between 6 and 36″ NOT including the book transfer from Treasury to MoD of 8bn, on top of it.
– the small uplift (estimated to be a good 3bn cumulatively between 2015 and 2020) only covers the long-lead items within the above sum of 8 bn (but not the design work that was on-going before the SDSR)

I all fairness Bernard Gray going from general risk buffers across the board to better estimates, by programme, must be taken to be within that liberal “error tolerance” of £ 20bn

The complete and utter violence and spitefulness of it all. You think you imagine it well beforehand. But you don’t. And the paradox is at first it’s awesome. A rush. But after sustained bouts of it, it breaks you. It’s very hard to put across the violence though. Films show gore but you can’t feel that punch in your chest as a shock wave from a soldier detonating an IED in front of you hits. And the horrendous smell.

So the violence. It’s stupefying. Which sounds an odd thing to say but you just don’t appreciate how awful it is going to be before you go away.

Oh god don’t do that! I had a soppy moment! The birds at Khar Nikah were very peaceful. I used to sit and listen to them when I had a moment and smoke my pipe (an idea I got from Pacific!!). The thing is, and it’s obvious now, but it’s deadly silent when nothing is going on. Almost like you’ve gone deaf. Incredibly peaceful when there isn’t an A10 constantly strafing!

“the us is activly trying to strip uk territory”
Still don’t know what that means.

Iraq and Afghanistan are very much British wars. We made our stand ‘shoulder-to-shoulder’ with the Americans. The UK strenuously made the arguments to the international community – at the Security Council table as well as touring individual countries. And we have often declared our interests in respect to the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US does not order us to be there, or set the scale of our commitment – and specifically in relation to Iraq, the US told Blair prior to war that invasion could be done without British forces and that the UK could choose only to participate in a less controversial, post-war, stabilization force if that were his wish.

I pity you about the smell, I’m in the medical field, morgue, accidents et al and that damn internal organs smell is something I could never get used to. Endure yes, but damn it stinks really bad.

For pay matters as a Singaporean reservist, you guys are going to love this. You’re not paid. lol. Since conscription is universal for guys, you’re going to be trained even if you don’t like it.

For the TA, it seems that the monetary incentive is required to encourage people to sign up, but since Singapore has no need to “encourage”, there is really no need to spend more money to do something that is an obligation by law. When you’re not activated, you live on your civilian pay like everyone else. The SAF only pays you when you are activated one month a year for training, which is a classic case of left pocket/right pocket. An income tax of 7-8% collected by the government which is close to the 1/12 of a year pay they need to pay you when they activate you for a month. This essentially means you’re paying for your own army service, and overall cost to the government is close to nil other than equipment cost. Sneaky bastards.

Employment protection is by law. Companies are not allowed to fire staff due to National Service. Most companies are not too upset about it, there is sometimes a slight staff shortfall, but the tradeoff is them getting army disciplined workers, which they see as incredibly helpful in solving tardiness and getting staff that can take a fair degree of bullshit and still keep their cool. (I said “keep their cool”, not “they won’t bitch about it”… :P ). Those companies that don’t like it just carry on as much as they can. Authoritarian government, no point arguing with them, they’ll listen… then do what they want to do anyway. Which has pros and cons but that’s a different topic.

So that was pay and employment protection covered. Anything anyone want to ask? Just go ahead, I’ll try to answer best I can.

anyone watch royals in afghanistan last night? It’s been a good few programmes already, but concentrating on how they were getting the people back into the villages was superb viewing, the RN translator known as alexander the great by the locals was just enspiring. Right at the end a welsh guard sgt summed it all upsaying his friends and CO who died would’ve been pleased to know “they hadn’t been pissing in the wind” it was a very dusty eye moment.

Sums up all phil has been saying, just because there’s no d-day style push back, it the small victories of towns and markets re-opening that show we are winning

Its scotch mist mate, all this re building work lasts as long as we are there. 10 mins after we are gone the Taliban;-

You know; the ‘good’ ones we are negotiating with, not the ‘bad’ ones the Afghan govt are negotiating with; Nor the ‘who the F*ck are they’ ones who actually have an office in Bahrain now* will appear; take over at gun point and start blowing up everything and every one that is ‘Un-Islamic’

Every British soldier who has died in Afghan has died for sweet f’all. And has done since the day The US decided to back off when we and they had the Taliban on the run and go and try and sort out Iraq. There are still people who owe me money over bets I had about how they would be back if we did not finish them off.

* How does that work? Can’t see Google proudly announcing it has the IT fro terrorist award of the year for providing the computers, Staples aint going to post about their new blast proof office furniture as used by the Taliban..

B Black

Iraq and Afghan would have happened without us.

Our political masters decided for some inexplicable, but seriously F*ckwit reason we needed:-

A £10 billion drain on our economy,
To piss off even more some thoroughly evil types,
Tear up a perfectly good military reputation,
Oh and get several thousand of our soldiers killed and injured,

If that makes it a British war Ok. In my book it makes it a US war we invited ourselves too.

Phil

If you have ‘been there’ then respects.

However I still cannot see what is balanced about your force levels or what you intend to achieve with them…

Must be imagining the ANA and ANP and ALP. The enemy are criminals on the most part. Not everyone in Afghan is a murderous destructive bastard just itching to destroy everything when we leave. Most just want to get on with it. They’re normal human beings who value peace and security. When we leave the insurgency will be weakened again as what little nationalistic element there is to it is undermined by the lack of the foreigner.

The enemy are people prepared to kill and be killed for their beliefs. Criminal or not.
BTW Criminals is what the US called the VC, we called the IRA, and the Nazi’s called the Russian Partisans……

The Afghan civil war* will ultimately result in the defeat of Kazi or at the very least the incorporation more or less at gunpoint of significant Taliban elements in an Islamic govt largely hostile to the west.
As for the alphabet soup of security forces left behind by us. The history of such things (with one or two honourable exceptions), is that they melt away faster than a politicians manifesto promises, after he’s won the election. Once the money stops and the occupying/ allied forces aren’t there to do the heavy work.

*(Pencil it in your diary as The great military social occasion for 2014 simply anyone who is anyone will be invited: Iraq Pakistan, India Iran Saudi Arabia:- US UK west in general will manufacture a subsequent social engagement and will have to decline gracefully. Russia won’t have made it’s mind up yet).

“The enemy are people prepared to kill and be killed for their beliefs. Criminal or not.”

Right, so a group of ferral youths in this country who kick to death an old man do so because of their beliefs? What a load of shit. When I say criminals, I mean criminals. I mean common thugs. I don’t mean Jihadists, although they certainly exploit them, I mean criminals pure and simple.

We don’t want a stable nation with hot and cold running wimmins rights

What we want is just enough stability so that a even a semi friendly nation can emerge that doesn’t allow or at least keeps the lid on outward bound terrorist schools.

I tend to agree that it was a strategic mistake to drop the Afghanistan ball and go an play in Iraq which cost us dear but you have to finish what you started, even if you end up with less than you hoped

Given that Pakistan with 500,000 men under arms can’t control the Hindu Kush and the sheer scale of geography how can we possibly believe that Afghanistan will be able to prevent “terrorists” setting up there again?

Further surely it is contrary to talk of discrete terror cells and distributed terror networks on one hand and then talk about attacking territory or destroying physical infrastructure on the other?

“@TD Agree a win is an Afghanistan that does not return to being a safe haven for terrorists. Anything else is the cherry on the icing on the cake.”

Thank God someone on the same page!

And x the key is in the detail. One cannot guarantee that terrorists won’t try and set up there again. But what we can have, is a Government that won’t tolerate that and harass them and allow us to go and get them if needs be.

Afghanistan must become hostile to such an organisation. Not harbour, nurture and protect it like it did.

I made it the day Tony Blair (of blessed memory), decide we needed to got to War.

My mind said:-

1) Why? what’s in for us?
2) The US is going to do this anyway.
3) This is going to cost us blood and treasure.
4) After all our last Afghan adventures went well didn’t they.
5) The Russians were just back from an Afghan holiday with lots of pictures and souvenirs (like a war in the Caucasus). They said it was pants as well.

When we bought off the locals, deployed John Simpson, fought of the Taliban die hards, and looked like we might just pull it off;

My mind asked:-

‘WTF are we doing turning our backs on this and starting another war next door. The whole war on 2 fronts thing generally does not go well. The bastards will be back in months if we do not only stomp them, but keep stomping them. So that the ordinary decent Afghans can see they are stomped and stop being afraid of the Knock in the night.

MY Mind told me that we no longer had the anti to play high stakes poker in Iraq and Basra proved that.

My mind told me trying to control Helmund with 3 guys and a dog was stupid.

My Mind told me there were striking parallels with Vietnam.

1) Insecure border over which rebels could come and go at will
2) Safe havens on other side of border they could retreat to supported by at least elements of that state.
3) At least a core of supporters on the ground.
4) Corrupt murderous regime installed by outside powers. Lacking general support
5) No functioning state apparatus forcing people into tribal support arrangements. leaving no strong believe or reliance on the ‘Free state’.
6) Strong driving ideology (in this case a religion)
7) General hatred of the foreign invader and all his works.
8)Insufficient troops on the ground, over-reliance on technology.
9) Funding from outside backers for weapons etc.

In fact the only real difference is that Vietnam tends to be wetter with more trees.

My mind told me we were in the shit.

And NOTHING that has happened since:-

All the dead bodies,
All the maimed heroes,

And most of all my mind tells me.

ALL the announcements that

‘This year is really it we got them on the run boys the ANA are finally up to it …yad yada yada

ARE UNMITIGATED BOLLOCKS

So please Phill. I will retract all of the above, I will tell my mind

‘You know what you got it wrong old bean’.

If you will deign to answer these questions:-

Why did we go to Afghan wen the yanks would have done it without us?

Why did we go to Iraq? when the Yanks offered to do it without us.

What were supposed to achieve originally in Afghan?

And finally

‘WHAT WILL VICTORY LOOK LIKE IN AFGHANISTAN IN 2014???*

* The answer

‘Well we get the deaths down to a ‘manageable level’ long enough for us to show some Journo’s round, say ‘look at this functioning state'; declare victory, piss off; then when it falls into a blood bath 2 years later; sigh and say ‘Well we tried’.

Ixion, should have stopped reading when you said, the US would have done it without us! Maybe you want to hide behind big brother but most of us do not and I speak as someone who has been there and seen the difference.
As for what we have achieved, we have taken away the safe haven that allowed planning and training for spectacular attacks on the western world.
George Orwell sums it up nicely “We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.” Sleep well Ixion.

I would have sent British brigade in alongside the
French
German
Italian
Spanish
Portuguese
Danish
Dutch
Polish
Hungarian
Bulgarian
Romanian
Greek
and Turks (after all they are in Nato and want into the EC).

And I do mean fighting brigades; not some units who don’t go out at night or who’s rules of engagement, prevent effective operation.

Why did we go? It’s called being an ally. It’s called collective defence. It’s called realising but for the Grace of God that was us.

Afghanistan was the base for an organisation that would have killed as many westerners as they possibly could have.

The more, the better.

Pure, monstrous, blind spite focused on the western liberal world, which, we are a part of don’t ya know.

This is OUR war. It is OUR business. We are fighting for OUR security and the collective security of the people of the western world and in fact the Muslim world as far more Muslims have been killed by these organisations than westerners.

I do sleep safely in my bed because rough men do violence. I will sleep safer if their lives are not wasted unless it was in an effective campaign.

I slept as safely in my bed in reality on the 12th of September, as I did on the 10th. I am probably as safe in my bed now, as I was on the 12th of September. The Afghan adventure has changed that not one Iota. The killing of Bin laden may help a bit. but that was special forces raid not, building roads etc.

“I slept as safely in my bed in reality on the 12th of September, as I did on the 10th. I am probably as safe in my bed now, as I was on the 12th of September. The Afghan adventure has changed that not one Iota. The killing of Bin laden may help a bit. but that was special forces raid not, building roads etc.”

There’s no point trying to argue against this. You just think what you want. Nobody really cares either way if you think its worthwhile or not.

Nobody can argue against statements like that.

I think we’d be a lot less safe if there were terrorists with the luxury of a secure base in a remote fortress. But then I can’t prove what would have happened if we hadn’t gone in.

Not if you read the papers and believe it all and indulge in their agenda then I suppose not, you’re right.

It’s all doom and gloom. The Afghans are unable to live in peace and want to destroy each other constantly and a state with a strong central government and large army has never managed to gain control over its territories, ever in the history of mankind. And the insurgency is a coherent, well funded, focused organisation with a common and easily definable aim and the broad support of the Afghan people, who will in turn try and kill them all too. Because they can’t help themselves.

ixion, really so the fact that since the London bombings in 2005 they have been unable to mount a spectacular attack on western targets is just coincidence. there have also been plenty of spec ops in Afghanistan made much easier by operating from ISAF controlled areas. Intelligence is gathered daily and security means ops are staged over tens rather than thousands of miles.

How do you cost a war?
Who do you ask govt figures are ‘Massaged’. Do you include the costs of things you would have paid for anyway – soldiers wages etc? If you buy a vehicle for Afghan and you have it left afterwards do you include the vehicle in the cost? So I am suspicious of any exact figures..
Other peoples figures have an agenda. I just went with the most ‘reliable’ figures quoted in public.

It was a shit load of dosh OK?

Phill

Ok no one cares what I think I can live with that.

‘I think we’d be a lot less safe if there were terrorists with the luxury of a secure base in a remote fortress’.

What you mean like the bases in Sudan, Pakistan, Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq……..

@IXION: I think we really need to look carefully at the “we dropped the ball on Afghanistan to go to Iraq” meme. At the time, the received wisdom was that the best way of preserving our success in Afghan was a “light footprint”, since more troops would make the Afghans feel “occupied”. In 2002-2005 the Taliban was considered a busted flush.

Iraq was a low level war then, and had been since 1991. The Yanks and ourselves were regularly fired on patrolling the no-fly zones, and had to maintain large garrisons in Saudi and Kuwait, plus large forces on standby in case Saddam decided now was the time to get out of his box.

Iraq may not turn out to be the democratic example to the rest of the Arab middle east that was hoped, but it’s no longer a place we worry about taking Kuwait and Saudi. The US still has a garrison in Kuwait and Qatar, but it’s aligned against Iran.

Given that by now, sanctions against Iraq would have collapsed by now, would we have been able to mount any significant effort in Afghan? Or would we still be on perpetual standby to go back to Kuwait?

Phil said “But what we can have, is a Government that won’t tolerate that and harass them and allow us to go and get them if needs be.”

ISAF has a strength of 132,000 (90,000 US) backed up by some pretty sophisticated equipment. They have spent the last 10 years not tolerating and harassing the Taliban. And as for going after them after withdrawal I think it is probably the Russians and the Pakistanis who have a greater say on who comes and goes from Afghanistan. If “we” had to go after them I doubt there would be a government in Kabul that would be friendly to “us” anyway.

The thing with the GWOT is we, the peoples of the developed world, don’t know how safer it has made us. Obviously the world’s governments and their security agencies are handicapped because of operational security. That is assuming there is something happening. And those plots that have come to light have been amateur verging on the comical.

The biggest threat to the West coming from Afghanistan is heroin. 67 poor souls died on 9/11, 55 poor souls on 7/7, and 398 servicemen killed in Afghanistan yet in 2006 alone, the year the UK went into Helmand, in England and Wales 713 died from Heroin. I am sure the poppy fields are lot easier to find and destroy than the Taliban.

PS: For a while now every time I see GWOT I think it stands for Global War on Terry.

The diference between Afghanistan and Sudan, Pakistan, Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq is that in the after mentioned countries they have to act covertly and in opposition to the Govt(or at least parts of it) they do not have complete freedom to train, rehearse and plan as they want. hence the bungled and foiled attempts since 2005.

That’s the point they weren’t a busted flush, and I lack all the secret contacts and info to say they were a busted flush but at the time I bored for Britain on the ‘We are really going to regret not finish these bastards off meme’ and if I could see it, some professional somewhere damn well should have

@IXION: hindsight is a wonderful thing. Personally, I think the Taliban’s potency flows from where it always has: from Baluchistan and Waziristan, with a good dose of help from the ISI. We can only react, and since the Pakistanis are against us as much as with us, there is a limit to how much we can achieve.

ixion, well there are actually 2 Govts in sudan, North and South, maybe you mean Somalia? Pakistan is fractured but does not tolerate open training camps other than in border regions which are hit by the US. Lebanon has Govt and the support of Syria who are no fans of AQ. In yemen the Govt corrupt as it is is in open conflict with AQ and we have been training their security forces for the last 8 years. Iraq is most definitely not a supporter of Western terrorism too busy with internal disputes.

x thanks for the geography lesson, what large underpopulated areas actually means in the real world is it is easier to spot activity that is out of place. ixion hezbolah very cleverly do not alienate themselves from the left wing socialists in the wetern world by restricting their attacks to Israeli targets.

The US had it in for the Taliban once they refused to arrest and extradite bin Laden for the 1999 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania; their unwillingness to cooperate may be linked to the US, and the West in general, refusing to recognize their new (from ’96) Islamic republic. However, the Taliban itself was never the issue that began our war. We should never have concerned ourselves with trying to build some kind of free and liberal society in Afghanistan, nor whether the Taliban may retake power once we’ve gone. If whatever regime in power in Afghanistan prevents the export of terrorism, then we’ve won – and we could have reached that point years ago. Lives spent to ensure that girls can go to school, or that our favourite corrupt politicians stay in power, have been wasted.

Brian, have you ever seen an Afghani girl beaten because she learned to read, i have. have you ever seen the difference to the community that schooling makes? have you ever asked the guys if it is worthwhile and they want to be there? Love to see you get tell either the guys out there or the girls being educated that it was all a waste of time!

Sana’a the capital of Yemen has a population of 2,000,000 or so. And it isn’t as well laid out as Belfast (population 270,000 or so) so seeing as both Republican and Unionist terrorists operated in Belfast Sana’a must be a much better for terrorist operations. I suppose with Bin Laden being found sitting in the middle of Pakistani town supports this.

Though I take your point. In the real world you will find terror training happens everywhere. Even out in the middle of nowhere. It happens because it is low key. There aren’t Clancy-esque training camps with ranges and assault courses. It is small groups meeting in back rooms being kept secure by locals who believe in their cause or by locals terrified into compliance. If ISAF could have TLAM Taliban’s Catterick don’t you think they would have done so by now?

I will concede that during the Rhodesian Bush War the Rhodesians did knock seven shades out of several ZANU and ZAPO bases. Perhaps this is why today’s terrorist keep a low profile.

Indeed have spent a bit of time in sana forgive puctuation plse us keyboard. The point is that as corrupt as the Presidents security forces are they actively(very) seek out terrorist cells and the Yemeni SF have been trained by UK assets for a decade.

This ” If ISAF could have TLAM Taliban’s Catterick” is what the Carter Adm did all the time; they had to give US aid & embassy staff two days warning to get secure… do you think they ever hit anything other than emptied camps?

“I will concede that during the Rhodesian Bush War the Rhodesians did knock seven shades out of several ZANU and ZAPO bases. Perhaps this is why today’s terrorist keep a low profile.”
– could be, but the same can and will start to happen when you have “commandos” from the country that is being fought over to clear up (it is not about surgical skill only, but about what happens next)

Yes I know about that strike. ”
– more than one?
– but the other side has intel, as well
– more seriously, they knew that if they evaded the strike (and then relocated), nothing else would follow
…bad policy

No one and I mean no one wins a counter insurgency you just keep going until everyone gets tired of the killing and agree to talk. if your not out in 18 months of going in you become part of the problem. You can’t go into Helmand and remove the poppy just like that it the lively hoods of a lot of people there if you take that away people get upset and i doubt were fighting the same people we fought a year ago. x the ira didn’t lose it ulster there now a major part of running the place and doing very nicely for themselves. I don’t know how you supposed to do it but we need to find a better smarter way than we have been.

I was talking about blessed space to train as a joke. I picked on Ulster as compared to many of these Middle Eastern states it is tiny. I wasn’t talking about the Troubles specifically with reference to the actual campaign. Ok?

As for poppies and livelihoods though I take your point and I don’t specifically want to see Afghan farmers or their families go hungry the simple fact is heroin kills more British than terrorist activity every year. Considering the money the farmer makes on the crop. And considering world grain prices and Afghani food import levels I find it hard to believe that a field of cereals isn’t just as profitable to the farmer as poppies. This is one of the lefty value judgement call arguments isn’t it? Is the life of an Afghani worth more than a British drug addict? Burn the fields. Burn them all. Don’t pay the farmers for the poppy crop. Don’t pay them not to grow it. Drop food aid out of ‘planes if need be for a year. Drug related problems cost the NHS approximately £15billion per year. The GDP of Afghanistan, that is the white market GDP, is only about £7.5billion. (Enough to run the RAF or RN odd that……)

APATS, I said the lives spent have been wasted, not time. If you can reform Afghan society just by spending a little time, them fine; but if we want to fight wars for emotional rather than defensive reasons, then we could easily find ourselves in a constant state of conflict.
There are many shit-holes around the world that we don’t feel the need to resolve through military intervention, and I don’t see why Afghanistan should be different. The UNHCR lists 3,695,000 Afghan refugees for September 2001, and 956,000 internally displaced, so there were obvious problems with that country – but no one in the West was calling for an army to go in to stabilize and rebuild the nation before then. Improving the Afghan peasants’ lot may be a noble aim, but it’s not a necessary one.

Poppies are worth too much as drugs. If they didn’t grow it someone else would. It wouldn’t be worth them growing if it wasn’t illegal over here. Playing devils advocate here. Heroin is cheap as chips out there because there isn’t the risk in handling and transporting it. Obviously how to solve the drugs problem is well out of the scope of this blog. But it’s a thought.

Time wasted is a general phrase regarding effort not specifically time but you know that. Afghanistan was a NATO article 5 mission and do you really believe that because you cannot help everywhere you should help nowhere? As for calling Afghans peasents? Your BNP dues are on direct debit I take it?

Somalia (Got it right that time). Went from functioning country to Mad Max status, because everyone wanted peace but only as a result of their own sides victory. Everyone in Northern Ireland wanted Peace, only after the Catholics or protestants (delete as required) were defeated.

Palestinians want peace, the Israelis want peace, but only after victory over the other side.

By and large the Afghans seem to want a sharia law Muslim state, even those don’t want the Taliban and want some form of democracy. In such a state the rights of women become very shaky depending upon the interpretation of the relevant clerics, constantly in danger of death for honour crimes. After all Saudi clerics have decreed that woman who drives a car is a prostitute who should be stoned to death. (I have read the Koran and could find nothing about cars in it).

So do I feel sorry for the people of Afghan (particularly the female ones – you bet. Do I think we should go to war to ‘save’ them no. Because I am a bastard? No because I know it will not change.

Afghanistan is the Balkans of the east. Only this time the Pommaranians had the sense to stay out.

Jesus Christ, this is what is with European Military procurement at the moment. You end up letting everyone in and it becomes a right mess of “I want to do this, I won’t pay for that” It could end up very much like Typhoon. Just say no!!! If other countries want a UAV, they can do it themselves or just buy the thing after we got what we want out of it.
This may sound protectionist, but to me multi country projects always end up being a pile of dog do do. Look how many attempts it took before we ended up going Type 45!

Radio 4 morning news puts the 3-year freeze on the improvements of accommodation into a new light
– after 8 years of service, off you go, to the open market
– will that really be so? Radio news tend to be one-liners without all the relevant detail (at times)

@ACC: sure, I bet it’s radar horizon is much better than SPY-1. But it’s not been tested the way Aegis/Standard has yet (still!) and can do far fewer things. I’d rather have the 12 operational hulls too :-(

I worry that the legacy of recent conflicts is that one-and-a-half unpopular wars may create a permanently unpopular concept of intervention, and yet the rapidly changing security landscape means an ambivalence to defence and security policy would undermine our interests and values.

If its Murphy, then it is about making his Shadow Review look important
– however, that one has such a long and drawn-out time table that it is clearly an exercise in producing ammunition for the next general elections

“I worry that the legacy of recent conflicts is that one-and-a-half unpopular wars may create a permanently unpopular concept of intervention, and yet the rapidly changing security landscape means an ambivalence to defence and security policy would undermine our interests and values.”

As that chatham house study made clear, the majority in favour of an interventionist foriegn policy is slim, and could easily be reversed into a minority with another protracted and nasty war that doesn’t command public support.

On that day we say goodbye to nukes, carriers, the ability to conduct division level ops out of area, and much of our RAF enablers such as airlift and Gstars.

Hamas is starting to worry about this kind of talk (they publicly stated that they will pass this round)
“Marine Gen. James Mattis, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, didn’t come out and endorse U.S. intervention in Syria. But he did everything short of it, playing up the opportunity for the U.S. to bloody the nose of an Iranian proxy. Mattis told a Senate panel that knocking off dictator Bashar Assad would represent “the biggest strategic setback for Iran in 25 years.”

A proxy war against Iran sounded like the most compelling rationale for involvement in Syria to Mattis, who testified on Tuesday morning before a Senate Armed Services Committee strongly concerned with aiding the Syrian rebels and checking Iranian influence in the Mideast. Prompted primarily by Sen. John McCain, who endorses U.S. airstrikes on Assad’s forces, Mattis said Iran’s “link to Lebanese Hezbollah will be cut if Bashar Assad goes,” and that “providing arms” to the Syrian opposition “is perhaps an option.””
– the real heavy weights, Panetta and Dempsey will be heard tomorrow re: Syria and options for dealing with the situation

@ ACC – The Syria situation is all about Iran-US. Should Assad fall then Iran not only loses her one regional ally (?)but also her link with Hezbollah and Hamas. Throw in a strike by Israel (probably during the US election to avoid any serious consequences from the US) and the entire region to ignite. If Iran blocks the Strait of Homus and we’ll probably be dragged in.

I can’t for a moment pretend to be surprised. Interesting that the Minister has gone ahead and ordered a review on this one accusation alone – perhaps it is too obvious a manipulation to credibly deny it?

“81. For the UK submarine industry, there is work on the Astute submarines to around 2025 after which there are possibilities of follow-on work or of alternative warship 29 building at Barrow. Without a Trident replacement, there will be serious questions about the future viability of the UK submarine industry. BAE Systems is a world-class defence specialist so it is unlikely that it will decide to enter completely new civil markets. Often, proposals for conversion from defence to civil activities (e.g. tanks to tractors; submarines to washing machines) represent a triumph of hope over experience (magic wand economics).”

Most miners did very well out of it. A good number around here invested in small businesses. They now spend their days on the golf course complaining about the Tories. My father is an electrical engineer many miners could buy and sell him. Most pit electricians spent there shifts asleep and were earning twice as much as my father working 50 hours managing projects that cost hundreds of thousands. Growing up the miners’ kids were always first to have the latest stuff, miners’ were the first to on foreign holidays, always had new cars. I don’t think Mrs Thatcher did the right thing sacrificing our energy security on the open market. But to say miners were hard done by is a load of bollocks.

There has been a huge human toll to the end of deep mining in many areas of the country.

It took the Valleys 20+ years to get out of the slump that the closure of the mines generated. They are still paying a huge human cost as the villages shrink, the mobile move away and the local work ethic wilts.

I fear you lived in Barnsley / Selby and played with the children of the miners who were on good bonus as the mechanisation took off. I fear you forget that not all miners were on that level of wage.

As for your point about cars – they were all Ladas.
Togliatti was on overtime up until the Miners Strike.
Now look at them – the only damage Maggie did to Russia.

That is common in Indian military deals, when one supplier wins the bid, the competitor will then lodge a complaint and queer the whole process to force a restart. Funny thing is that this ended up blacklisting almost all suppliers :) Go take a look at their artillery program and see who got blacklisted.

Don’t care what you think. I come from a mining area. my granddad was a miner all his life as were several great uncles. Even my other grandfather did a spell after leaving the army. I went to school with miners’ kids; well those kids that didn’t somehow end up going to the local independent. I have dead ancestors in all three of bid mining accidents that occurred within a 3 mile radius of where I sit their bodies never recovered. I know what the likes of the BBC and academia say about miners and the strike of 84. But I have lived with the reality. So I don’t give a flying toss whether you agree or disagree or whatever.

Sad to see Hawker Beechcraft looks like it is heading for Chapter 11 courtesy of the debt that got piled onto it when private equity bought it from Raytheon. Looks like they’re aiming for some kind of pre-pack bankruptcy, it just goes to show that even Goldman Sachs don’t get it right every time!

Fun and games with the various AT-6 deals going pear-shaped, the lawyers are now getting involved since the USAF cocked up the paperwork.

balance of combat aircraft types; Russia seems to be less inclined to tread the multi-role road than countries in the West:
– 60 air-superiority fighters
– 100 multirole
– 140 long-range strike
these being grand totals and therefore include the negligible numbers already in service.

Obama spent his first term with other alternatives than the Biden “go-commando option” being persecuted. Now (if there will be a second term)yesterday’s Wired Mag edition shares what it will look like after the 2014 drawdown:
“Rumors have circulated for months in defense circles that the U.S. wants to retain a few bases that can serve as a staging ground for drone warfare and overhead surveillance of suspected terrorist activity in those Pakistani tribal areas. They include Bagram airfield, a huge aerial hub near Kabul; the airfields at Kandahar in the south and Jalalabad in the east, places where armed drones heading for Pakistan already take off; and perhaps a brigade-sized base called Salerno in Khost Province, just barely west of the Pakistan border and Mazar-e-Sharif, a transit and resupply hub in the north.

To be clear, the U.S. military has not formally confirmed the desire to retain access to any of those bases. That’ll be the subject of follow-on negotiations with the Afghans”

Another, more recent one (today, by David Axe)from Wired Mag:
-before the quote, their tactics will be of course exactly the opposite to what is let out (F-15s using the AMRAAMs as BVR and turning away before being reachable by IR missiles, and the F-22s taking the hand-off’s for the already fired AMRAAMs)
“The Air Force fixed the F-15s and partially patched up the F-22s just in time for the escalating stand-off over Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program. In March the Air Force deployed the Massachusetts Air National Guard’s 104th Fighter Wing, flying 20 standard F-15Cs, to an “undisclosed” air base in Southwest Asia — probably either Al Dhafra in the United Arab Emirates or Al Udeid in Qatar. The highly-experienced Massachusetts Guardsmen, who typically have several years more experience than their active-duty counterparts, would be ready “should Iran test the 104th,” said wing commander Col. Robert Brooks.

Upgraded F-15Cs from the 18th Wing in Japan joined the Guard Eagles. The Japan-based fighters have the latest APG-63(V)2 and (V)3 radars, manufactured by Raytheon. They’re electronically-scanned radars that radiate many individual beams from fixed antenna clusters and track more targets, faster, than old-model mechanical radars that must physically swivel back and forth. The 18th Wing is working up a fleet of 54 updated Eagles spread across two squadrons. The video above, shot by an F-15 pilot, depicts some of the wing’s training.

F-22s followed this month. “Multiple” Raptors deployed to Al Dhafra, according to Amy Butler at Aviation Week. Air Force spokesman Capt. Phil Ventura confirmed the deployment. It’s not clear where the Raptors came from. If they’re from the Alaska-based 3rd Wing, they’re the latest Increment 3.1 model with boosted bombing capabilities in addition to the standard air-to-air weaponry. In any event, the Middle East mission represents the first time F-22s are anywhere near a possible combat zone.

The mix of old and upgraded F-15s and ultra-modern F-22s is no accident. When the Pentagon stopped producing the nearly $400-million-a-copy Raptor after 187 units — half as many as the Air Force said it needed — the flying branch committed to keeping 250 F-15Cs in service until 2025 at the earliest. Pilots began developing team tactics for the two fighter types.

“We have a woefully tiny F-22 fleet,” said Gen. Mike Hostage, the Air Force’s main fighter commander. So the flying branch worked out a system whereby large numbers of F-15s cover for small numbers of Raptors that sneak in around an enemy’s flank in full stealth mode. “Our objective is to fly in front with the F-22s, and have the persistence to stay there while the [F-22s] are conducting their [low-observable] attack,” Maj. Todd Giggy, an Eagle pilot, told Aviation Week.”

I know too some this will be off topic but with this government writing into law that the DIfD budget is 0.7% GDP why can’t the defence budget be 2.5% GDP this would allow the MOD to allow for ebbs and flows in the economy allowing the MOD to carry a cash surplus into a slush fund to ensure that there ill be funds available for cost over runs in the equipement budget or extra funds for exercises or better still take the defence of our country out of short term policy ideas there by the chief of the defence staff gets the SDR every 5 years then the MOD plans to use the funds it has to implement the SDR results this would stop politicl partys using defence as a piggy bank to raid and use as a football maybe the the country could order the equipement it needs .

now that we have the land of milk and honey next door (Torygraph reports “François Hollande had timeout for a leisurely lunch at a restaurant in Tulle, his homebase.
He started with a terrine of duck before tucking into a fillet of beef with foie gras sauce and fried apples. He had had strawberries for dessert. Washed down with wine and mineral water”)
we’ll soon see how these will go
“leaders of the Group of Eight rich nation’s club at [his] Camp David retreat in Maryland between May 18-19, followed by the NATO transatlantic alliance summit in [his home city]Chicago on May 20-21″

The script for the latter has already been leaked, but if Obama can line up the sulking kids into some kind of order and common effort in the first one, that will be a winner for him

South China Sea has been moved to the eastern part of the Med, according to this piece from The Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center

“THE CYPRUS GAS CONFLICT

New tension brewed between Turkey and Cyprus after Cyprus’ and Israel’s enormous gas discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean in 2010-2011. Turkey’s reaction to those finds was extremely negative. Turkey was embroiled with a conflict, not only with Cyprus, its European backers and Israel, but with Russia as well. During 2009 and 2010, Cyprus and Israel discovered enormous natural gas deposits off their shores in the Mediterranean Sea.[67] Then, in late 2011, Noble Energy, the firm contracted by Cyprus to explore its waters for gas, announced a discovery estimated at 5-8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas there. This discovery could not have come at a better time for Cyprus, which in 2011 endured a slippage in its fiscal ratings, was shut out of international capital markets, was hit by a large munitions blast, and was finally forced to accept a Russian bailout. All told, the discoveries by both countries amount to 33 TCF of gas. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the Levant Basin, where most of these discoveries have occurred, may hold 122 TCF.

Yet these discoveries have also had some negative repercussions. They have heightened tensions between the TRNC and the Greek-led Republic of Cyprus. The discoveries offer Cyprus the prospect of becoming a local economic powerhouse in contrast to the near disasters of 2011, and of thus reducing Turkish leverage upon Cyprus’ policies regarding the Cypriot Turks and Cyprus’ policies in general. Indeed, the gas finds to date give Cyprus enough gas to meet its needs for an estimated 150 years, fully satisfy its electricity generating needs for 210 years, and provide it with billions of dollars of revenues that will allow it to become a major exporter to Europe once pipelines or tankers carrying LNG can be built. So it can also expect an influx of much more foreign European capital to build those facilities and to strengthen and diversify its sources of foreign investment. It is likely that any pipeline will have to be built to connect with those that now or soon will cross Turkey or that a liquefaction plant will need to be built to process Cypriot and Israeli gas finds.

Not surprisingly, the TRNC government reacted coolly to the gas discovery, and Turkey, which does not recognize the government of Cyprus, even sent an exploration ship accompanied by warships and fighter jets to the area after Noble started drilling. Turkey’s threats against Cyprus and Israel to their exploration and drilling for gas in the Eastern Mediterranean also caused concern in Russia. Moscow recently organized a large loan to Cyprus to sustain it against a crisis should Greece default, since so many Russian accounts are held in Cyprus’ banks. Cyprus then reinvested in Russia or laundered the elite’s money by cycling it out of Russia into the global banking system.

Clearly Moscow cannot allow Cyprus to go under without incurring serious domestic losses. Turkish threats therefore deeply disturb both Cyprus and Russia. Once Turkey’s navy openly threatened Cyprus for signing an agreement with the Texas-based firm Noble Energy, which is a partner with Israel in developing Israel’s maritime gas fields, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs publicly backed Cyprus’ right to develop its Mediterranean gas. Cyprus in turn labeled Moscow “a shield against any threats by Turkey.”[68] Furthermore, Russia dispatched an aircraft carrier with fighter planes, and at last one submarine to Cyprus as a show of support in another open example of gunboat diplomacy.[69]”

The article is not shy to speculate that should Syria implode, Russia’s guardian role for Cyprus, against Turkish pressure, has grown so close that the naval base in Syria would be replaced by one in Cyprus.

Chicago meeting coming up and one more piece of news has been leaked
“If Washington Post ace Greg Jaffe is correct, Allen isn’t leaving under the cloud that haunted his predecessors. He’s getting a big promotion: military chief of NATO, one of the military’s most prestigious jobs. President Obama loves him. But Allen’s impending departure still leaves the war primed for its fifth commander in four years, an astonishing amount of top-level turnover for a war that still has over 87,000 U.S. troops in combat.”
– the real news might be the ex-Commander of the Joint Special Operations Command taking over

Sir Humphrey making good broader points on his blog, while writing about the MOD PUS position becoming vacant:
“The PUS will need to try to take steps to reassure an aging work force (reportedly 60% of MOD is aged over 40) that they still have a meaningful career path. This is to be done when recruiting is frozen, promotion boards are on hold, and when HR no longer exists to guide staff on logical career development. They also need to try to work out how to hold onto people with niche skills and roles, such as project managers, procurement experts, and intelligence specialists and so on. They need to work out how to replenish this finite resource too, as with the recruiting taps currently all but turned off for new entrants; there will come a point when skills are lost forever.”

For those not able to access the article, basically Asian countries are finally starting to see the strong domino effect of the economic woes in Europe, as we (the community) predicted here a week or so ago (forget what board).

One select quotes;

“Asia is finally getting caught up in the European mess with trade finally starting to buckle,” said Frederic Neumann, regional economist at HSBC. “The latest data suggests there is much more pain to come on the export side.””

Very big news and interesting that it would be led by EADS in share value; so the idea must be EADS gets access to the US market that it’s desperate to crack, BAE gets access to the EADS range of products and has diversified into commercial with no extra effort.

Combined they start to leverage new technologies better such as Eurocopter X3 and BAE UAV software and presumably they will combine on a lot of new cyber etc..

Makes me wonder if they have seen a future need for really serious investment in security and want to spread the risk, the most likely to scupper this is obviously the US but maybe with sequestration round the bend bigger means more likely to survive, and so now is a good time to float the idea for the US Congress.

I certainly think the product mix will be very powerful and that linking MBDA and one of the prime movers in F35 seems intriguing.
Puts a real impetus behind the UAS of both companies they would be able to take on all comers and could deploy more technology than Lockheed as I see it. Possibly that’s the aim; to take on the number one pentagon supplier who otherwise is going to control future cash flows coming from the US military

Is it less? Who competes for funds that Lockheed have sewn up, if you don’t have significant products the F35 will just keep consuming the budget; more in the US than here, but BAE can’t support their technology base on UK sales alone

It is the Euro bit that worries me. BAE is a Stirling Dollar company. Why jump in with a company whose base is in countries whose currency isn’t exactly secure? If the Euro goes we will be enough trouble as it is without one of largest companies getting embroiled too. At least if EDF goes down the power stations can still be kept running. I try not to think about the likes of Santander because it makes me mad. As Chris B says less competition too. Isn’t there a nice South Korean or India company they can merge with instead? Perhaps BEADS will sell the ship yards to Hynudia or Daewoo, now that would be good news…..

The rumour I read was that the non-US part of BAE was seen as dragging down the share price and that a split would make it easy to repackage the European side of the business. I have a terrible tendency to extrapolate from limited data and get it completely wrong, but the BAE/EADS merger sounds like the beginning of this process. At present I am betting the US part of BAE is separated out as part of the merger deal.

I bet the European Commission doesn’t put the mockers on this monopoly. I just hope they sell the ship yards. I wonder if Electric Boat could be persuaded to buy Barrow, if the Koreans get Portsmouth and Govan. Off on a tangent apparently Scotland would have to apply to join the EU if they became independent. Made me laugh.

Typical Germans. Make you think EADs really wanted the merger to stop this!
It’s holding back €600m in loans because it wants more work.
How about you agree the terms first hand so you can make demands? Rather than spit your dummy out. Union pah!

Also a thought,
I just saw Hawker Beech-craft Chinese talks have ended, perhaps BAE should look at a take over?
BAE could start to build it self in the civil sector with some top end small planes and start to dominate this area?

Apparently I always think everybody is wrong, so forgive if I continue on that vein. Um. Do the Swiss or Norwegians or Singaporeans or Australians need a supranational organisation to deliver anything (or similar too) outlined in that document? No. Take living and working abroad. I have friends and familiar from Vancouver to Newfoundland, from Perth to Melbourne, and both north and south islands of New Zealand. Nobody I know has moved to Italy or Germany or Bulgaria to live and work. The former group did it without treaties and acts to allow free movement. And I could go on and on and on. But I won’t. :) ;)

I am now going have to destroy my computer because it has been infected with EU propaganda.

EDIT: I fib!!!!!! My sister’s ex/on/off/partner lives in Greece. Um. But he is cancelled out by one friend and daughter of our neighbour who live in New York and Vermont, USA. Another country with lots of English speaking peeps.

When i hear people complain about eu my blood boils one simple fact everyone in europe need the eu for one simple fact security 10 to 15 years time we will have 3 super powers in the world 1. China 2. Usa 3. A recovering russia and in a middle east that will look completely different to what it is today a loose collition of united states in south america led by brazil so how pray tell would a resurgent commenwealth work? It wouldn’t 1 most of the commen wealth is doing alright by themselves and would resent the uk coming back to the commen wealth after we have spent the last 39 years making ourselves cosy with our europen friends 2. There would after by a huge finacial benefit to them as well as us and there is not that big a market out there 3. Most of our manufactoring is onlt as big as it is because we are in the eu as soon as we leave yhat would be all gone within 2 to 3 years as production would be moved to easten europe
So to conclude no eu no future this is not the 1950’s it is 2012 the landscape has changed

The situation in Europe is a continuation of a theme from the Napoleonic wars. Should Europe be a whale or an elephant? Britain favoured the whale i.e loose alliance with like minded sovereign European states while not missing trading with the rest of the world. France favoured the elephant ie one big European state under one ruler & one law.
I want Britain to have whale membership of the EU. If France & Germany want to be elephants, then that is their choice.

Surely, following the strategy of the last 300-odd years, which has been to prevent a hegemonic Great Power in Europe in control of the Channel Ports, we should take great pains never to allow a United Europe, and if a United Europe ever looked like happening, we should be very careful to hug it close..
Exactly the point of being in the EU of course: to either sabotage it or be right at the core.

Difficulty at the moment to know whether the EU is going to coalesce into a financial union (and thence a United States of Europe), split into parts or just disintegrate, but are UKIP a growing hazard to sensible strategy?

Words fail me, other than I hope someone punches Liam Fox in the face and hope he never gets to run a government department ever again.

As for Europe, it’s fast becoming “you’re either in or out” I’d much prefer out, I’m pro Europe but for me a union is a big no no. I don’t won’t it to fall apart, but if anyone like the Germans say we’re obsessed about the war, we should retort that they are as well, why else do they obsess about “unity and peace” wasn’t much call for a union before the world wars was there?. I don’t think France, Germany or England are going to have a war again, Well unless the UK says no to joining and a trade war starts, which could very well happen!

We often decry British manufacturing because it can’t compete on price. A lot of it is actually because we simply don’t compete on innovation the way we used to. The French seem to have the right idea:

From Dr North’s page. Not interested in the political custard. But the little table at the top of the article is interesting. Especially when you consider that 65% of EU fishing grounds used to be “ours”.

Adam
I got flak when I said the stillborn FN BRG 15.5mm used steel bullets with a plastic cover. It was the plastic cover that engaged the rifling, allowing high velocity without rapid wear.
I speculated at a 7.7×52 to replace 7.62 x 51 with lead free + stoked up from 3500J to 4200J. Got shot down.Sadly.

MANAMA, Bahrain — Something that looks very much like a new Cold War is forming up here in the Arabian Gulf region.

The hot ground war of Iraq is over, and its counterpart in Afghanistan is drawing down, perhaps even faster than planned. In their place, a new standoff centered on the maritime environment already is at work, signifying intentions by the U.S. and its allies to remain active participants in the region.

“Defence secretary Philip Hammond is said to be ‘queasy’ about the proposal to part-privatise procurement under the ‘government owned, contractor operated’ model.”

“With an annual budget of £15bn and 15,000 staff, DE&S plays a crucial role for the MoD, and no other nation has ever privatised such an integral part of the military machine.”

“In an announcement expected on Thursday, ministers will say they are pursuing reforms in which DE&S will remain government owned, but not government run. Day-to-day management would be undertaken by a private company, possibly from abroad.”

“the so-called GoCo option (government-owned, contractor-operated) will probably get the go-ahead because it is the preferred option of the civil servant currently in charge of DE&S – Bernard Gray, the chief of defence materiel.”
– well, it is Friday today, so the announcement should be out

“Hammond has conceded it is “challenging” to recruit staff into DE&S to run complex projects worth billions of pounds when the MoD can only offer them civil service pay.

Union leaders say this is a poor reason to hand over defence procurement to private companies and fear the MoD is being driven into risky cost-cutting exercises.

“It’s a sorry state of affairs when the Ministry of Defence decides to contract out control of £15bn of annual public spending for the simple reason that the Treasury won’t allow it to pay its staff properly and enable it to hire and retain quality people with the right skills and experience,” said a spokesman for Prospect, the union that represents thousands of defence engineers and scientists.”
– and RUSI concurs…

“The Royal United Services Institute thinktank has also raised fears about inviting contractors in to run DE&S.

“Try as we did, we were able to discern only two clear arguments in favour of GoCo, neither of which is convincing and one of which may be undemocratic,” a research paper concluded last year.

“The MoD could acquire the services of a better class of managers, because a company can pay higher salaries than the public sector. However, the prime minister could easily give dispensation for a limited number of such people to be brought into the MoD at special salaries.”

Guardian again (today’s)… reports a new type of alliance (claimed by a Syrian spokesman):
“The Damascus regime’s deputy foreign minister, Faisal al-Miqdad, told CNN the Israeli air strikes at the weekend represented “a declaration of war” and betokened an alliance between Islamist terrorists and Israel. He said Syria would retaliate in its own time and in its own way.

Omran Zoabi, the information minister, said: “Syria is a country that does not accept insults and it doesn’t accept humiliation.”

Israeli military analysts said the missiles had been fired from outside Syrian airspace to avoid engaging Syria’s reportedly formidable air defences. The Lebanese army said that Israeli planes had flown above Lebanon, an act that drew condemnation from the country’s president, Michel Suleiman.

The office of the Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, also denounced the attack”

However, it looks like Syria has had these Iran-supplied missiles under lock and key for several years and it also looks like Israel acted for the reason of not being so sure how long that “safety” arrangement would hold
– is the article well researched or is the information “leak” about the background well managed?

Looks like there will be more F-35s for Japan… in due course. Informative piece from Breakingdefence (must be AOL Defence renamed):
“Japan is a key technological partner for the United States. They are a founding member of the Aegis global enterprise. They are an investor and operational partner in the SM-3 missile capability. They are a major player in the F-35 program, which will allow the shaping of an attack and defense enterprise. They are building a final assembly facility for the F-35 which will become a key element in the F-35 global procurement system, subject to Japanese government policy decisions. And they are keenly interested in seeing how the Osprey can shape greater reach and range for the “dynamic defense” of Japan.

In effect, Japan is about to enter its third phase of defense and security policy since the end of the Cold War. The first phase was extended homeland defense, where the focus was primarily on defending the homeland from direct threats to the homeland. A more classic understanding of defense was in play, whereby force had to be projected forward to threaten Japan and as this threat materialized, defenses need to be fortified. It was defense versus emergent direct threats to Japan.

Life changed. Technology made warfare more dynamic, and the nature of power projection has changed. The reach from tactical assets can have strategic consequences, the speed of operations has accelerated and operations highlighting the impact of “shock and awe” high speed operations made it clear that relatively static defenses were really not defenses at all.”